


Tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks (And the kindest of kisses break the hardest of hearts)

by sarcastic_fina



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, Skinny!Steve, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 44,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcastic_fina/pseuds/sarcastic_fina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Darcy/Steve prompt fills.</p><p>[40] things you said when you thought i was asleep<br/>[41] things you said at the kitchen table<br/>[42] things you said that made me love you more<br/>[43] skinny!Steve, Role Reversal AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bringing the shield to bed

"You seriously need to stop bringing that thing to bed," she told him from where she sat on her side of the bed, her legs crossed beneath her, a book in her lap.

"It’s not coming  _to_ bed, it’s going  _beside_ the bed. There’s a difference,” Steve defended, kicking off his slippers, the ‘old-man’ type that always made it sound like his feet were dragging on the floor, or so Darcy told him.

He closed the door behind him, because it was one more protective measure, adding a second or two for reaction time if they were ever attacked in their apartment, and then he rested his shield against the wall, beside the end table that his lamp and sketchbook sat atop. 

"If I wasn’t here, taking up half the bed, would you cuddle it?" she teased, flipping the ribbon down to mark her page before she closed her book and leaned over to rest it on her own bedside table. 

"You take up more than half the bed," he said with a grin. 

Darcy rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault. I swear, I go to sleep like a normal person and as soon I hit REM, I starfish.” 

He chuckled low, under his breath, and said, “I know. I’m the one you keep smacking in the face.” 

"Hey, if there’s one mug I  _don’t_ want to bruise, it’s yours. Maybe I’m trying to pet that awesome jaw of yours and get a little enthusiastic.” She raised an arm and showed off her ‘pipes’ as she liked to call them, poking her bicep as she told him, “Look! All that training with Natasha is paying off.”

He squinted. “Where?”

"Right. There." She poked her own, not exactly bulging, bicep, and squeezed her fist a little tighter. "You can’t tell me you don’t see that„." 

Steve leaned closer, his head cocked. “Here?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the lower part of her arm. “Or maybe here…?” He moved up a little, his nose lightly grazing her skin. “Or is it this very impressive muscle here?” He pressed a kiss to where she’d been pointing before nipping at it gently.

She folded her lips to keep from smiling at him, but, as per usual, it didn’t work. “All right, very cute.” She swung her arm around his neck and pulled him in closer. “You play your cards right, Rogers, and I’ll let you bring the shield to bed. We can all cuddle together.” 

He rolled his eyes and gathered her up, turning them over so he was on his back and she was comfortably straddling his waist. “Tempting, but I don’t know if I want to subject her to your nightly abuse…” 

Darcy snorted. “Right, because getting smacked in the face while you’re trying to sleep is so much worse than being taken into battle. I think I’m offended.” 

Steve rubbed his hands up her thighs before settling them on her hips. “Then I’ll just have to do my best to make it up to you…”

"It’s highly recommended," she murmured, before leaning down for a kiss. 

An hour later, Steve was thoroughly ‘forgiven,’ but the shield stayed where it’d been put… and he still got smacked in the face when she fell asleep. All things considered, it was a price he was willing to pay. 

 


	2. canary lounge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt** : steve/darcy: something with skinny steve? - **anonymous** ([Tumblr](http://www.sarcasticfina.tumblr.com))

Steve told Bucky he just liked the feel of the place, but it was  _her_ he liked the feel of.

Darcy Lewis was the star of the Canary Lounge, wearing dresses that sparkled brighter than 4th of July fireworks as she stood on the stage, crooning out sorrowful songs that always made his heart lurch in his chest. Steve wasn’t dumb enough to think she’d ever turn those pretty blue eyes of hers in his direction, but listening to her sing brought his spirits up as much as they seemed to bring others down. 

Leaving the stage for the night with a wink and a smile, she disappeared behind stage, not to be seen again until tomorrow night.

Steve nursed his drink, it was only his second and he’d been careful not to drink too quick. He could feel the stink-eye of the bartender on him, and knew he was headed for being kicked out. Two drinks was his maximum, though, he couldn’t afford to spend much more than that, especially with how often he showed up for her shows. 

He imagined if Bucky were around, he’d rib him for his starry-eyed appreciation, but Steve didn’t care. So what if he had it bad for Darcy? He knew well enough it wasn’t going anywhere. Even if he stood a chance, there was no getting past the fact that she was a Moll. There were a few nights that Steve saw him, some slick looking gangster in a pin-striped suit, smirking up at Darcy as she sang, his buddies all hooting and hollering at her. Couldn’t hardly hear her with all that noise. 

They weren’t there tonight though, and he sent up a little prayer for that. The rest of the lounge respected her enough to stay quiet, clapping and whistling at the end of each song, but otherwise just letting her voice sweep them away. 

Turning around on his stool, he stirred the last bit of his drink with his straw. He had to be heading home soon; he only hoped whoever Bucky had over (was he still seeing Sherry?), they’d keep it down. Or, if he was lucky, they would’ve already passed out. 

He’d just knocked back the last of his drink and was about to slip off the stool when a figure moved up beside him. Miles of curves dressed in dark blue fabric that looked softer than butter rested against the bar, two hands clapping the counter top.

"What’s a girl gotta do for a drink around here, huh, Mickey?" she joked, her voice raised with humor. 

"Ah, for you, just say my name with a little more love, huh?" 

“ _Mickey, Mickey, Mickey_. There? That enough love for ya?” 

The bartender chuckled, reaching around for a bottle and topping off a class for her with a little cherry garnish. “For you, Darcy, there ain’t never enough love.” 

She grinned at him, and then turned, catching sight of Steve gawping up at her. “Hey, why don’t you top of my friend here’s drink, too. On me, Mick. He’s lookin’ low on cheer.” 

"You gotta heart of gold," the bartender sighed, but listened anyway, topping off Steve’s glass for him before he moved on down the bar to serve other customers. 

"This is the part where you thank me," she told him, lips curved up in a grin. 

"O-oh, right, sorry. Uh, thank you, Miss. Lewis. You… didn’t have to do that." He wiped his damp hands down the leg of his pants and offered a faint smile. "But I appreciate it all the same." 

"It’s Darcy, sweetcheeks. Just Darcy. No ‘Miss Lewis.’" She pulled out a silver case then and opened it to take a snipe from inside. "You want one?" she asked, waving the case at him. 

"Oh, no, thank you. The, uh, smoke makes my asthma kick up." He winced then, feeling like a heel. 

"That right?" She frowned, closing the case and leaving her cigarette behind. 

"You can go ahead," he assured, "I don’t want to bother you." 

"It’s me who’d be a bother." She shrugged, taking a seat on the stool beside him. "How’d you like the show?" 

"It was… beautiful. Your voice… it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before, God’s honest truth." 

She half-smiled. “God, huh? He take an active interest in my singing career?” 

"If he’s smart, he does." 

Darcy laughed, her blue eyes even brighter up close. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” 

"Steve. Steve Rogers, ma’am." 

"Well, Steve Rogers, you seem to be a big fan of mine. I think I’ve seen you here every night this week…" 

Steve reached up to rub the back of his neck as he cleared his throat. “It was a long week…” he explained. “Just needed a break from it all.” 

"And hearin’ me sing my heart out helps?" she wondered, an eyebrow raised curiously. 

"I think if they could bottle the way your singing makes me feel, you’d have people lined up around the block." 

She ducked her eyes a moment, smiling to herself. “That’s a fine compliment.” 

"It’s the truth." 

"God’s honest?" she asked, her voice gently teasing him. 

"God’s honest," he agreed with a grin. 

Humming, she reached for her drink and threw back the whole thing in one drag. “Well, if I can make you feel any better after a long day, then my work is done.” Hopping up from her stool, she brushed her dark hair back over her shoulders and grinned at him. “It was nice meetin’ you, Steve. I hope things start lookin’ up for ya.” With a wink, she turned on her heel and started for the door, crossing the floor with a swing of her hips. 

He sighed, watching her go, his brows hiked up high. 

What a dame… 

* * *

 

Steve’s life did pick up shortly after. Some of his drawings were selling and he even had people coming to him for commissions. But that didn’t stop him from spending a few nights a week at the bar in Canary Lounge. If anything, he felt a little more chipper each time he dropped in to spend his hard-earned money on a few drinks and enjoy the show. 

Darcy was a vision. Each night, she seemed to have a new costume, her face all dolled up in make-up. Not that she needed it. He’d seen her dressed down and without all that rouge and powder shades. She was gorgeous. All pouty lips and big eyes. 

Her songs were a little more upbeat that week, moving away from the melancholy songs he’d been enjoying only a few days earlier. She seemed to have a little more pep to her step, her hips rocking happily to the beat as she sang. His toe tapped along on the bottom rung of his stool and his mouth turned up on one side appreciatively. 

"So, this is where you’re hidin’, huh?" 

Steve turned abruptly to find Bucky standing there, leaning against the bar, raising a finger at the bartender to get a drink. 

"Buck, what, uh, what’re you doin’ here? Thought you had a date with Mary-Lou?" 

"Did. Didn’t go so swell. Still hung up on the last guy that took her out. Sent her home in a taxi when she started crying." 

"So no second date then?" Steve asked, mouth twitching up with amusement. 

"Punk," Bucky muttered, taking a seat on the stool. He cast his eyes around the lounge curiously as he asked, "So? Who’s the dame that’s got you emptyin’ out what little you got in your pockets?" 

Steve glanced at him, cleared his throat, and said, “Name’s Darcy. She, uh… She’s got a nice voice, huh?” 

Bucky’s brows hiked. “ _Chrissakes_. When I told you to find yourself a girl, I didn’t think you’d set the bar so damn high…” He shook his head as he gave Darcy a look over. “She is beautiful, though.” 

"She’s gorgeous," Steve said simply. 

"You talk to her?" 

"Yeah, last week…" He smiled. "She noticed I’d been around, watching her show." 

"She got a ring on her finger?" 

"No. But, uh… The guys up front, the loud ones…" He nodded his chin forward at the rowdy crowd at the table up front and center. "Think she’s with one of them. Guy in blue, hat on the table." 

Bucky whistled, long and low. “You got a thing for a Moll, Steve?” 

He shrugged. 

"Ya just can’t do anything easy, can ya?" 

He half-smiled, turning his gaze back to the stage. “Pay off’s worth it.” 

"You’re askin’ for trouble," Bucky warned. 

"Aren’t I always?" 

With a sigh, he simply leaned back. “Fine. But you’re tellin’ Becca if I wind up in the hospital tryin’ to save our asses from a table of goons, all right?” 

Steve chuckled under his breath, but nodded all the same. 

Thankfully, Bucky’s prediction didn’t come true. The table emptied out shortly after someone hurried in tell them something, sobering up quick as they left the lounge in a hurry, faces grim and set with determination. If Steve hadn’t been sure they were gangsters before, he was now. 

He and Bucky hung around until the end of the set and ordered a last round of drinks. Bucky was making eyes at a pretty brunette down the bar and Steve was sure he’d be walking home along, leaving Bucky to his business. 

"You bringin’ friends with ya now? Should I be flattered?" 

Steve perked up, turning to see Darcy standing on his other side, a grin playing at her lips, no longer that popping red they had been on stage, but just as full and pink as ever. 

His heart hammered hard in his chest. “Just the one… And I didn’t invite him so much as he found me.” 

"Thought I’d see what all the fuss was," Bucky interjected, sending Darcy a grin. "Bucky Barnes, Steve here’s best friend." 

"Darcy Lewis," she introduced herself. "And how’d you like the show, Mr. Barnes?" 

"Loved it. Steve wasn’t kidding when he said he’d never heard anything more beautiful… You’re real talented, Miss. Lewis." 

Steve glanced at him abruptly. He’d never once mentioned Darcy or her singing to Bucky. But, it looked like his friend was trying to talk him up. He might’ve rolled his eyes if Darcy wouldn’t catch him. 

"That so?" She turned to look at him and Steve offered a smile. 

"Can’t argue with the truth," he said. 

"You keep flattering me like this, Steve, and a girl’s gonna let it go to her head…" she returned, smiling. 

"Good, she deserves to hear it," he answered. 

With a shake of her head, she reached past him to tap the bar. “Mickey, put Steve and Mr. Barnes’ drinks on my tab.” Turning to Steve, she told him, “Can’t have my biggest fan go thirsty.” 

"You didn’t have to," he told her, sitting up a little straighter. 

"Maybe I wanted to." She looked between him and Bucky with a grin. "You boys have a good night. Bar’s open for another hour, you might as well get your fill." With a wink, she turned and walked off, the both of them leaning over to watch her go. 

Bucky whistled. “I don’t wanna get your hopes up… But you might just have a chance with her.” 

Steve snorted. “Yeah, sure,” he muttered.

Shaking his head, Bucky clapped a hand to Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t get so down on yourself. I’d bet my last dollar she doesn’t come to see just anybody and buy ‘em drinks. She likes you, Steve. Who knows, maybe she’s tired of the rough and tough gangster type and wants to settle down with a gentle-hearted artist instead.” 

He scoffed, rolling his eyes and turning back to his drink. “I can dream,” he muttered before he took a long swig.

* * *

 

Much as Steve told himself he shouldn’t, it was hard not to get his hopes up when Darcy started dropping by the bar to see him after each set. And instead of just sharing a drink with him, she started to linger.

"Tell me about your day," she encouraged, stirring her straw in her drink.

"You first," he told her. "What’d you do before you had to be on stage?"

"You want the glamorous version of singin’ scales and dress fittings?" she wondered, a faint hint of bitterness to her tone. 

"I want whatever you wanna tell me," he said sincerely.

She stared at him a long moment, thoughtful as her eyes washed over his face. “I slept in. Nights take it outta me, so I try to get as much shut-eye as I can. Slept for as long as I could before I started to feel cranky. Then I made somethin’ to eat and found a good book to read. Nothin’ fancy. No big party, no champagne fountain, just a nice quiet day to myself.” 

"Sounds nice," he said, half-smiling. 

"Yeah? You don’t think it sounds boring?" 

"No." He shook his head. "Some of my best days are spent on my own, just a sketchbook to keep me company." 

"You draw?" she asked. 

"I do. I don’t know if I’m any good, but I try." 

"If I asked, would you draw me?" she wondered, looking excited. "I always wanted to see myself like that." She sat up a little straighter in her seat then and said, "But you’ll have to draw my left side; it’s prettier." 

Steve reached over, catching her chin, and turned her head so he could see her right side. “Looks just as pretty over here.” 

Darcy’s gaze softened. “You sure your eyes aren’t goin’?” 

He chuckled lightly. “Could be. But blind or not, you’re a beautiful dame, Darcy.” 

She let out a soft sigh then, shaking her head. “You’re a special kind of man, you know that, Steve?” 

"Not so sure that’s a compliment," he murmured. 

"From me it is." Hopping off her stool, she leaned over and pressed a warm, lingering kiss to his cheek. "If I were a better gal, I might just let myself fall for you," she told him, her lips brushing his ear. 

Before Steve could argue that she was the best he ever knew, she was off. 

He was starting to think she’d never stick around long enough for him to get his fill. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. 

 


	3. lazy mornings

Darcy huffed out a breath, squeezing her arms a little tighter around her pillow. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one,” she reminded him, turning her head so her cheek lay against her arm, the messy braid she’d tied her hair back in slipping down her shoulder blade. “One of us has to be.”

Steve’s nose dragged down her spine as he pressed kiss after kiss down the length of her bare back. His thumb grazed her ribs as his hand pressed down against the mattress to hold himself up. His stomach rubbed over the curve her ass as he moved down, his mouth dragging against her skin.

“I’ll be responsible tomorrow,” he said, reaching the small of her back and resting his forehead against her a moment. “We don’t get a lotta mornings like this… If I’d known I’d be away on missions all the time—“

“What? You wouldn’t have asked me out for coffee?” She arched an eyebrow. “Saved me a few lonely weeks?”

He sighed, turning his head so his cheek pressed to her back while he let his fingers skirt up her side, teasing her waist, where he knew she was ticklish.

She squirmed, reaching back to wave her hand at him to stop.

She could feel his lips turn up in a smile.

“I wouldn’t.”

She went still for a moment. “You wouldn’t what?”

He slid his fingers up her back and circled them around her shoulder blade, brushing her braid out of his way as he traced across her shoulder and down her bicep.

“It’d be smarter… Kinder, maybe, not to ask you out… To let this thing we had just kind of fade away.”

“Kinder how?”

He sighed, his breath skittering over her. “It’s not fair to you, to either of us, me leaving all the time…”

“My life doesn’t just stop when you’re away. I have Jane, I have my work.” She shook her head. “Do I miss you? Yeah, of course. You make the best coffee.”

“ _Darcy.._.” he sighed.

“Fine, so I miss other things, too. But you need to remember, I’m not sitting around here, pining away, angry that you’re not here 24/7. And, just for your information, I think we do a pretty good job of making the time we do have worth it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, softly. “Be better with more coffee, and maybe those pancakes you make, with the smiley faces and the blueberries. But I think we’re doing okay so far.”

He chuckled lowly and climbed up, pressing a kiss to her shoulder and the crook of her neck, and then is arms were wrapping around hers and he was hugging her pillow with her, his chin balanced on her shoulder. “If I could go back and do it again, I’d still ask you out for that coffee… I don’t always like how much time I have to spend away or how we need to steal these moments so we can get any to ourselves, but I wouldn’t trade it… Even if it’s hard sometimes, even if I miss you more than I get to see you these days…” He turned his head to see her. “It’s worth it.”

She smiled up at him and leaned closer, puckering her lips demandingly. Steve laughed as he met her in the middle, kissing her a little awkwardly given the angle, but smiling all the same.

He buried his fingers in her hair and kissed her cheek and her neck as she laid her head down again, biting her lip as she grinned and watched him.

“You think Jane’ll let me have you for the rest of the day?” he wondered.

“Hey, if she can disappear for days on end whenever Thor touches down, I think I can take a day off whenever my super-soldier boyfriend comes back from spy-business.”

“Good.” With that, he rolled off her and dropped his feet to the floor. “I’m gonna go put a pot of coffee on and throw together some pancakes, not that you were hinting or anything.”

Darcy whistled as he walked away, naked as a jaybird. “You better put that ‘kiss the cook’ apron on. I bought it for you for a reason!” she told him.

As he reached the door, he spun on his heel to salute her and then continued on his way.

Darcy grinned, burying her face in her pillow, before finally stretching her arms out above her head and turning over to climb out of bed. She grabbed up one of her favorite plaid shirts of his and buttoned it half-way before leaving the room to join him. She was going to eat her fill of pancakey goodness and down a few cups of caffeine and then she was going to get right back to celebrating his happy return home. And it was  _home_. They might live in a billionaire’s ode to his penis and he might spend a lot of his time fighting the good fight while she wrangled scientists, so she wouldn’t say their life or relationships fit the ‘norm’, but it was theirs, and she loved every bit of it.


	4. Apple Pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt** : apple pie - **anonymous** ([Tumblr](http://www.sarcasticfina.tumblr.com))

"No, I’m telling you, this is the best apple pie you will ever eat, and the irony makes my soul happy." 

Steve half-smiles at her, more because of her enthusiasm than her amusement at him and patriotism. “All right, I’ll try it.”

"No, not  _try_. You will  _love_ it,” she told him, slicing out a piece and pushing the plate toward him with wide eyes and an excited grin. “Feel free to thank me in orgasms and money. Or both. I’d be happy with both.” 

He choked on a laugh, but didn’t comment, instead cutting off the pie tip with his fork and lifting it. Before it reached his mouth, he paused and told her, “Just so you know, I stopped at a lot of diners on my road trip, and they all boasted the best apple pie in fifty states.” 

"Honey, do I look like a grungy diner you stop at on the highway?  _No_. This is a Grandma Lewis recipe, which means it has a 51 star rating, my friend.” Before he could argue, she added, “The extra star is for you, personally, Cap.” 

He muffled a grinned and shrugged before he slid the fork into his mouth and let it settle on his tongue. He’d planned on teasing her, telling her that it was a close tie to one he tasted in a diner in Alabama. But when that perfect mixture of apple and spice hit his tongue, there was no reigning in his reaction. He moaned. Right from the gut, he let out the most sinful moan of his life. 

He didn’t even realize his eyes were closed until he opened them to see her grinning at him. Licking his lips, flaky bits of crust clinging to his mouth, he cut off another bite as he asked, “Orgasms, huh?” 

She laughed heartily then, but not so much later, when he made her moan for reasons that had very little to do with apple pie, except when he was licking the sauce off her stomach.

God bless, America.


	5. Unplanned Pregnancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt** : Unplanned pregnancy - **anonymous** ([Tumblr](http:/www.sarcasticfina.tumblr.com))

"Darcy," he called as he walked into the apartment, his duffle bag hanging heavy from his hand. He walked down the hallway to their bedroom, frowning when she didn’t answer back. He dropped his bag near the foot of the bed and started looking for her, brow furrowed. JARVIS said she’d been home and he’d called ahead yesterday to tell her when they were expecting to be back. "Darce? You here?" 

It wasn’t until he was passing the door to the bathroom and found it shut that he realized where she was and he knocked lightly on the door. “Hey, you in there?” 

She didn’t answer right away, but a muffled sniffle caught his attention. His heart rate ticked up in worry. “Darcy?” 

"Yeah, sorry, I’ll be out in a second." 

There was a pause then, some shuffling, and the sink running, before finally she was opening the bathroom door. She smiled up at him faintly. “Hey. You’re home,” she murmured, but she was quiet and subdued, and that was not how she usually reacted when he got back from overseas missions, especially ones that lasted as long as this one had. 

"Yeah, I…" He frowned. "Are you all right?" 

She nodded, biting her lip, and started down the hall to the kitchen. “Yeah, uh, I’ve just been really… tired lately, and not feeling too good. But it’s fine.” She reached up to rub at her eyes and moved toward the fridge. “Are you hungry? I threw up breakfast, so I’m  _starving_.” 

He followed after her, head cocked. “I can always eat,” he muttered distractedly. “Are you sure you’re okay? We could go down to medical, have them check you out.” 

"No, it’s fine. I figured out what it was." She dug around in the fridge before pulling out eggs and a pack of bacon. "Scrambled okay?" she wondered, but she was already pulling out the bowl and the whisk. 

When she moved back to the counter, he ducked his head to catch her eyes. “I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.” 

She didn’t answer right away, chewing on her lip, but then she paused, lifting her chin and stared searchingly at his face. “You remember, last year, when we talked about the future?” 

He nodded slowly.

"And you said you wanted to get married and have kids, but it’d have to be years and  _years_  later, because there was just so much going on and Bucky needs you and so you kind of felt like you were in this limbo, because you wanted those things, but you had to sacrifice them for a little while. And I said it was okay, because I didn’t need a ring or a baby and who wants a baby anyway, when they’re hanging out in Jane’s labs all day and could potentially get sucked into a wormhole that might send them to some distant alien universe, right? I mean, that’s not safe! That’s really  _un_ safe, actually, which is probably a really big sign that I would be an awful parent, because I  _willingly_ do that. I willingly hang out in dangerous places with potentially dangerous people. I mean, I have three assassins as friends. Arguably  _best_ friends. And what does that say about me, huh? Not good things, probably. Well, I don’t really know. I mean, it could be good, if you think about it. At least they’re my friends and not my enemies, that’s probably a tick in the pro column, right?” 

He reached for her as she waved her hands around frantically. “Darcy?  _Darcy_ ,” he called, trying to get a head of her. “What is going on?” 

She was a little breathless and a lot teary when she said, “i’m pregnant and I want it. I want it really badly. And I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be okay with not having a baby. But now I have one, sort of, potentially, it’s cooking in there, anyway, and I just… I know it’s not something you’re ready for and I’m okay with that. I really am. But  _I_ want this baby and I’m keeping it. That’s my decision. And it might mean quitting here or moving home to live with my nana for a while, because danger and wormholes, but I’ll do it. I’m prepared to do that. Even if I will miss everyone, including Jane and the assassins and you,  _duh_. But this is big and life-changing and it’s mine.” 

Steve stared at her, wide-eyed, trying to take in the overload of information she’d just thrown at him, and then… “Pregnant,” he said, his voice quiet as a whisper. 

Biting her lip again, she nodded. “I blame you and your super-swimmers, but I’m not exactly complaining, because, like I just said, I’m ready for this.” 

He didn’t reply at first. His brow was furrowed and his brain was racing. There were so many things that had to happen here. So many options he hadn’t thought of, wasn’t prepared to deal with. Because yes, Bucky needed his support, but he was getting better. Every day he was getting better and, after more than a year of helping him through things, they were finding a nice balance in their lives.

When he’d said that to her, he wasn’t lying. That’s where his life was. He loved Darcy. He wanted to marry Darcy. But his life was an uphill battle at the time and he thought it was going to take a lot longer before it leveled out. He didn’t know if it was completely level now. He wasn’t sure the life he lived would  _ever_  really be perfectly balanced. There were too many surprises, too many enemies, too many life-altering and ending days of the week. But he did know one thing. Or, well, two things. 

He loved Darcy. And he was going to be a father. 

He reached for her, his hand settling on her stomach, and he said, “You’ll be an amazing mother… I hope I’m even half as great a father.” 

She cried then, even as she smiled, and she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a hug. It wouldn’t be until later, after he made them scrambled eggs and bacon and they curled up on the couch together with him rubbing circles on her back, that he asked, “Wormholes?” 

She pinched his thigh. “Shut up. That’s totally possible.”


	6. darcy's a knockout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [Darcy's Outfit](http://www.polyvore.com/darcy_oneshot/set?id=122771242)

"You’re drooling." 

Steve blinked, his gaping expression suddenly transforming into a frown at his best friend. “I was not.” 

"Close enough." Bucky shrugged, raising an eyebrow as he looked across the room. He whistled, long and low. "Your geek-wrangler cleans up nice, huh? Haven’t seen curves like that since the 40’s." 

Steve knocked back the rest of his scotch, dropping the empty glass to the bar. He appreciated the taste even if it didn’t get him even slightly buzzed. “It’s going to be different tonight,” he stated, more to himself than to Bucky.

"Yeah?" Bucky smirked to himself. "No more ‘too polite for your own good’ Steve?"

"I’m not going to be rude," he muttered.

"Just don’t ‘ma’am’ her to death." Bucky nicked two glasses of champagne off a passing tray. "Here, take this. Go over there, tell her she looks gorgeous, ask her to dance. Pull the ‘aw shucks’ thing; dames go for that." 

He hummed disagreeably. “I don’t think Darcy does.”

Bucky shrugged. “You know her better than I do.”

Steve took the flutes from Bucky’s hands and took a deep breath. Gathering up his courage, he crossed the room, never pausing or slowing down, just in case his nerves got the better of him. He’d been working up to asking Darcy out for, well, weeks. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it was just that whenever they were around each other, it was public and usually at work and she was always being interrupted by Jane or Tony. So, he was polite, even formal, and he was a little worried he was coming off like a wet blanket. Not tonight, though. Tonight he was going to show her who he really was. He was going to be himself and hope that was enough. 

And he was really hoping it was enough. Because from what he’d seen, Darcy was bright and funny and unabashedly herself, no matter who was around or what those people thought of her. He liked that. He liked how brash and confident she was. 

He had almost reached her when Pepper, who she’d been talking to, split away from her to leave. As she was passing him, she winked, her lips curled up knowingly. Was he really that obvious? 

"Darcy," he said, wincing when it sounded a little louder than he meant it to. 

She looked up, her phone tucked in her hand. “Oh, hey, Cap,” she greeted, smiling. “Is the party really so boring you needed  _two_  drinks? Because I was promised the best night of my life, but so far, with the lack of mariachi band, it’s looking disappointing.” 

He laughed lightly and held one out to her. “Did you just get here?” he asked. 

"Yeah, a few minutes ago. There was a mix-up at the lab with some paperwork." She waved her hand dismissively. "Boring stuff. Trust me, you don’t wanna hear about it." 

"I do if you want to talk about it," he said sincerely.

She half-smiled up at him, her lips a bright, eye-catching red. “Well, if you’re offering an ear, I’m happy to vent.” She held her elbow up for him to take. “C’mon, we’ll find somewhere to sit and I can tell you about  _both_ times I had to use the fire extinguisher today.” 

"Both," he repeated, an eyebrow raised as he slid an arm through hers. She was close enough that he could catch a hint of her perfume and he breathed in a little deeper to hold on to the scent.

Her hand raised up, wrapping around his bicep as they started walking. He muffled a grin when she squeezed, but when he saw her smirking up at him without a lick of shame, he let his grin grow.

Maybe tonight really would be different after all.


	7. worst date/best kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [darcy's outfit](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=122891766)

Darcy could literally cry. In fact, she might. As soon as she got home and out of her dress. Her dress which was wearing their dessert. Literally, a giant chocolate stain on the lap of her favorite dress that was absolutely  _never_ coming out.

Of course, that was only one of  _many_  awful things that happened on their date…

The first being that she’d only gotten three feet away from her front door before the heel of her shoe broke without any kind of warning. Nothing like face-planting in front of your date to set the mood. After that shit-tastic experience, she went with flats.

And then the elevator glitched on them on the way to the ground floor, through no fault of JARVIS’ and almost definitely because Jane was sciencing in her lab. Did she mention she sometimes got claustrophobic? Because she did, and she had a minor panic attack in the elevator. Steve, being a sweetheart, offered to climb through the ceiling of the elevator and pull her up and out and climb them right up the shaft to safety. Which, of course, was when the elevator started working again. 

She thought that would be the end of their bad luck, but then they stepped outside to catch a cab and it started  _raining_. Like, torrential downpour! Her hair was no doubt a complete frizzy mess, of which she did not want to touch or look at, for fear of crying before she had time to hide her shame behind the privacy of her apartment door. 

This was not what she had planned for her first date with Steve. It was supposed to be magical. Like, rainbow colored unicorns would dance over their blitzed-out, on-their-way to being madly in love heads. She and Steve had been doing this dance for weeks now. This not-at-all choreographed and very sexually charged dance in which she very much wanted to tear his clothes off and make him see a whole different landscape of stars.

Only she wanted a little more than that too because he was kind of awesome in an unexpectedly witty kind of way. The over-the-top champion of America she read about in her history books was not exactly who Steve was, and she was quick to learn that the real him was a lot more complicated than what the hype wanted to describe him as. Sure, he had his morals and he was loyal to a fault, but he also had shades of grey. There were angles to him that she wanted to explore more, and not purely between the sheets. So when he asked her to dinner, she’d hopped on the ‘yes, let’s try dating and long term commitment’ train. Only it looked like the universe was against her. 

Dinner itself was great, if she completely ignored the part where her food was cold and his was under-cooked and there was a couple  _literally_ breaking up at the table next to them, and it was hard to ignore when they were talking  _so_ loudly.

But the conversation was great. There was something about Steve, about the way he listened, how focused he could be, that made her feel special. And she liked that he asked her for clarification if he didn’t understand a reference. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the fact that he didn’t get every pop culture nod she had to throw at him, he just asked her what it meant and added it to his list of things to watch or Google or listen to. It was kind of adorable, watching him scratch another thing onto his list, acknowledging that something she’d said or something she liked was worth his time. 

And then dessert came, and then dessert fell, right into her lap, and Darcy was just so done with the whole fiasco. She was pretty sure her hair looked like a rat’s nest, she was wearing chocolate cake, her knees were sore from when her heel had broken, her dinner  _sucked_ , and it was just bad. All around  _terrible_. She was ready to cut her losses and never speak of it again.

They caught a cab home after she tried to clean as much of the chocolate cake off her dress as she could. He was quiet beside her, staring out the window, his brow furrowed. She wondered how much he regretted the whole night. Maybe they should’ve gotten coffee first, started small. Or maybe theirs was a chemistry that shouldn’t have been explored. But that thought was, well, disappointing, to say the least. She liked him. She  _really_ liked him. Damn it, this was not how this was supposed to end. 

The elevator didn’t get stuck on the ride up, but it was quiet and uncomfortable and she could feel her dress clinging to her where it was wet. She sent up a prayer that she didn’t run into anyone else on the team,  _especially_ Tony, and let out a sigh of relief when the elevator doors opened and gave her a clear shot to her apartment door without interruption. 

Darcy was ready to wave goodbye to him over her shoulder and run away like a coward, but Steve stepped off the elevator with her. She should have known he’d be a gentleman. 

He walked her right up to the door and she dug around inside her purse for her key. “Well, that was probably the worst date of my life,” she admitted honestly. “And that includes that time in junior high when my date didn’t have his license, so his mother drove us to and from dinner and a movie, and actually stayed for the movie. Literally, she sat right between us… She was actually kind of nice. She gave me some great knitting tips.” 

She finally found her key under her phone and took it out in triumph. “Anyway, this was… awful. But we shouldn’t take it personally. I mean, all things considered, we can still be friends. In fact, we should be, because you’re kind of the only person I like hanging out with around here besides Jane. Clint has his moments, but he spends most of his time in air vents, where these hips will not venture. And Thor’s great, but he doesn’t visit as much as I’d like. I like Bruce, too, but he’s so twitchy all the time and with a personality like mine, that’s probably a giant green problem waiting to happen. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that, terrible dates aside, we should still hang out in the coffee room and make fun of Tony. It’s a favorite pastime of mine and—”

His lips slanted over hers so suddenly that she still kept talking for a few seconds, the sound muffled. But then his hands were cupping her cheeks and his tongue was licking at the seam of her mouth. And  _oh_ , oh that was nice. She parted her lips and reached for him, her hands gripping the front of his shirt and pulling him in closer. He chuckled lightly, but then her teeth nipped at his lower lip and his laughter bled into a groan. He shifted closer and she soon found her back pressed to the cold wood of her door, her hands smoothing up his chest and around the back of his neck. 

Steve could kiss. She’d had a few partners in the past that were too much tongue or too slobbery or trying too hard to be unique. But this, this was perfect. His thumb stroked down her cheek and skimmed into her hair, circling her ear gently before coming back around to drag along her jaw line. His palm slid along her neck, fingertips stroking her pulse before they fell down, down, down and rested on her collarbone, the heel of his palm settling just above her cleavage. Heat flared up and over her skin, and that tension, that beautiful chemistry she’d loved so much before, suddenly invaded every breath again.

The awful date was granted clemency as she arched up, wrapping her arms tighter around him, her fingers threading in his hair and tugging as she turned them around so he was against the door and she was pressed up close against him, leaning on his chest. He let out a hum and she grinned; apparently he liked it when women took charge. That could definitely work for her. 

Their heated kiss took a bit to slow down, but when it did, she knew that sexual tension wasn’t all they had. It became slow, a simmering, sipping, tempered heat. She opened her eyes to look up at him, gazing back at her with a lazy, satisfied smile. He stroked a hand down the nape of her neck and squeezed lightly. 

"Not a total bust?" she asked, her voice husky.

He shook his head faintly. “I’ve never run away when something was difficult, not when it mattered, and I won’t start now.” 

She swallowed tightly, bit her lip, and tapped her finger to his stubborn chin. “Good answer.” 

He grinned lightly. “Go out with me tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll take the stairs, I’ll bring an umbrella, we’ll go somewhere less crowded, quiet, maybe even bring our own food.” 

She laughed. “A picnic?” 

He nodded. “Sure.” 

Biting her lip, she stared up at him. “Okay.” 

He kissed her again, this time quicker and shorter, and then he untangled them and stepped back. “Tomorrow. I’ll meet you here at… three?” 

She nodded. “That works.” 

"Okay." He was having trouble hiding his grin and it only made him that much more appealing. "Goodnight, Darcy." 

"Night, Steve." 

She watched him as he walked back to the elevator and then let herself into her apartment. She sighed happily, forgetting, for a moment, that she had frizzy hair and her favorite dress was ruined. She pressed her fingers to her lips as she walked down the hallway, feeling giddy and hopeful, and never so excited for a picnic. 

Fingers crossed date #2 would be even half as good as that goodnight kiss was.


	8. unique gardening

Darcy walked into the kitchen from the backyard, whistling happily. She tugged a pair of dirty gloves from her fingers and tossed them into the garbage can under the sink. 

Steve watched, frowning, from where he was sitting at the table, his hand around a mug of coffee and the newspaper in front of him. “Were you… _gardening_?” he asked, his mouth screwed up in skepticism.

"Mmhmm," she said, making her way over to the coffee machine to pour herself a mug. 

"You…  _hate_ gardening.” He shook his head. “When the Realtor showed us the backyard, you said the only reason you’d ever use the garden was to bury the bodies of your enemies in it…” 

Darcy grinned at him over her shoulder and raised her coffee mug in cheers. 

Steve sighed. “Do I want to know?” 

Her expression turned downright devilish. 

Steve stood from his chair and crossed the room. His hands found her hips and squeezed as he pulled her in close and dropped his head down, an eyebrow raised. “Darcy, sweetheart, what did you bury in the garden?” 

She let him stew a while, his imagination coming up with various ideas, but her answer was completely unexpected. 

"Exactly what I said I would.  _My enemies_.” She raised her nose into the air with a sniff. “Tony pissed me off… So, I stole his customized Iron Man action figure and I  _buried_  it.” Her eyes narrowed and her mouth ticked up in a smirk. “He’ll never look for it there. He  _hates_ getting dirt under his nails.” 

Laughing deeply, Steve kissed her forehead. “You’re a devious genius.” 

"I know," she said cheerfully. "And don’t you forget it." 


	9. chest grope

Darcy found him in the gym in the lower half of Stark Tower. It wasn’t a place she spent a lot of time in personally, possibly proven by the Big Gulp in her hand. He’d just finished sparring with an unfortunate punching bag, looking ready for retirement, and so young, too. Alas, such was the fate of most of the punching bags that came under Cap’s assault. 

Not that she visited the gym just to watch him take out of his frustration on the bags or anything. That only happened occasionally. Like, every lunch break, but who was counting? And it wasn’t like she just silently ogled him, she kept up a constant stream of conversation, mostly one-sided, wherein she informed him about pop culture and frequently had JARVIS play news or movie clips or music over the speakers. She called it a trade; she got to enjoy the sight of all that muscle and firm skin and he learned more about the 21st century. Fair deal. 

Steve stripped off his shirt, damp with sweat, and tossed it in the vague direction of his duffel bag before he grabbed up his water bottle for a long drink. She cut herself off mid-ramble and just stared a bit.  _Wow_. She thought Thor was cut, and he was, but Steve-o had it going on. 

"Darcy?" 

"Hm?" she answered absently.

He recapped his water bottle, tossed it over with his shirt, and put his hands on his hips. “You were saying?” 

She blinked at him. “I was?” 

He half-smiled at her. “Yeah, you were telling me about one of your favorite bands. Although, I distinctly remember you calling Fall Out Boy your musical soul mates last week. Or was that just because you like their song titles?” 

She shrugged. “I have a lot of favorite bands.” Her brow furrowed. “You remember that? Sometimes when I go off into rants, I just assume you’ve turned out.” 

"Kind of hard to. You’re very passionate." 

Humming, she hopped up from her seat on the mats, taking his hand when he held it out for her. What a gentleman. It was probably a crime to want to climb him like a tree. At the very least, it had to be frowned on. Although, who could blame her? 

She was staring. She knew she was staring, but there was sweat beading on his skin and slowly skimming down. God, she could lick him up. She’d settle for just touching though. In fact, “Hey, can I touch your chest?” 

He raised an eyebrow down at her.

"You can say no. I won’t be offended." 

He stared at her a moment longer and then said, “Okay…” slowly, like he wasn’t completely sure this was normal. 

It probably wasn’t. 

She’d never claimed to be normal, though. 

"Okay!" She bent to put her Big Gulp down and then rubbed her hands together and took a breath. When he chuckled at her, she said, "I’m working up to it. I feel like I should stretch first." 

He rolled his eyes. “Soon would be good. I want to catch a shower and then get something to eat before my meeting with Coulson.” 

She nodded. “All right, don’t rush me.” She cracked her knuckles and then reached out hesitantly, glancing up at him once more. “You sure you’re okay with this? I’m not going to get slapped with a sexual harassment suit later, am I?” 

"Not that I’m aware of." 

She shrugged. “That’s valid. I shot a Nerf dart at Clint’s ass yesterday and Maria told me it was ‘work-place inappropriate.’ Although, she also praised me for my aim, so, talk about mixed signals…” 

He sighed at her, looking both amused and exasperated. Right, she should probably touch him now. Okay, she was going to do it. Right…  _now_. 

She pressed her hands, palm flat, to his impressive pecs. She was right. Very firm. And warm. And… Her hands slid down slowly, fingers splayed out to touch as much as possible. She bit her lip as she reached the top of his abdomen, feeling it tense under her touch. She swept her fingers down his stomach and then blinked out of the haze of appreciation and slid her hands back up, resting them on his upper chest. “Okay.” She patted his shoulders. “Good work. Thanks for that.” 

She pulled her hands away and tucked them behind her back, fingers curling around each other and squeezing so she wouldn’t try for a more extensive feel. Her cheeks were warm and she was feeling more than a little overwhelmed. She took a step back, cleared her throat, and willed her heart to stop racing.

He half-smiled at her, looking a little flushed himself, and turned to walk to his duffel bag, licking his lips. 

Darcy bent to grab her Big Gulp and took a nice, long drink to cool herself down, her skin feeling warm all over. 

Steve was gathering up his things as he asked, “You have plans for dinner?” 

"Why? You coming back here for a late shift of massacring defenseless punching bags?" 

His mouth curved up. “No, I was thinking we could try doing this in a different setting.” 

 _Oh._ She tilted her head curiously. ”Pop Culture 101 or the touching?” 

He smirked. “Both.” 

She smiled up at him. “I’m free for dinner.” 

He nodded. “Not anymore.” And then he turned to leave, making his way to the locker room for a shower. Her teeth dug into the straw of her drink as she watched him go. 

If she whistled, he really couldn’t blame her. 


	10. kitten rescue

"Darcy, seriously, this probably would’ve been easier if you just let me climb the tree." 

"She doesn’t  _know_ you, Steve,” Darcy huffed. “She would’ve clawed your pretty face up. Now move to the left, three inches.” 

He sighed and shifted three inches to the left, his hands on her knees as she sat on his shoulders, arms stretched up high toward the tree branches her little brown kitten had climbed up into and mewed from sadly. 

"The right! The right! I meant the right!" 

Rolling his eyes, he moved six inches to the right. “Better?”

"Don’t take that tone with me," she said, reaching down and rubbing her hand over his face in punishment. 

Steve shook his head and batted her hand away. “Darcy, we’ve been doing this for a half an hour. Can you reach Kitty Sif or not?” 

“ _Shh_. Your angry voice is scaring her.”

"This isn’t my angry voice. This is my frustrated voice. It’s also my ‘this is not what I meant when I said I wanted your legs around my head’ voice."

"Well, it’s not how I imagined getting my legs around you either, Steve, but— Oh!  _Hah!_  Success!” She wiggled around then and tugged on his hair. “The pussy has been retrieved, Captain Rogers. Return to base.”

He rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched. “Not yet it hasn’t, but it will be,” he muttered, before shifting them away from the tree. In an impressive move, he managed to get Darcy off his shoulders and into his arms without jarring her or her new kitten too much.

She smirked up at him. “A reward for your efforts, Rogers?”

He grinned at her as he carried her inside. “All in a day’s work, ma’am.”  


	11. a dance with skinny!steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Be sure to check out and like/reblog the absolutely amazing fanart made for this by **i-eat-men-like-air**](http://i-eat-men-like-air.tumblr.com/post/88334786547/you-know-its-not-all-bad-you-being-like)!

Darcy found him in the communal living room, Harry James and Helen Forrest singing ‘ _It’s Been a Long, Long Time_ ,” in the background. His narrow shoulders were slumped, head bowed over the glass of liquor in his hands. 

Something had happened on a mission that resulted in Steve returning to his previous (natural?) state. Short and skinny and lacking in the muscle that matched his strong sense of duty. He’d been sulking ever since, or so Tony had said. 

"Hey soldier," she greeted as she walked over to him. She leaned a hip against the island and nodded her chin down to the stool beside him. "This seat taken?"

He smiled faintly, giving his head a small shake before he took another swig of his drink. “Woefully empty, miss.” 

She grinned, pulling the stool out and sitting down. She watched him a moment, taking in the very different planes of a man she’d long come to associate with being larger than life, and not just physically. Steve had the kind of presence that made the whole room take notice, or that was how she saw him anyway. And now wasn’t any different, except for the disappointment that clouded his face. 

"How’re you feeling?" she wondered. 

He let out a snort, raised an eyebrow and looked over at her. “Y’know, it’s not the height or the bulk that I miss, contrary to what Stark thinks… It’s being able to breathe, not feeling every bone ache, knowing that I could do something, that I was capable of helping people,  _that’s_  what I miss… Because I don’t know what this… what  _I_ can do like this. Captain America is not a skinny guy from Brooklyn who can’t even pick up his shield.” 

"Sure he is," she argued. At his pursed lips and shaking head, she said, "Steve, just because you weren’t skinny as a rail and huffing on an inhaler every few minutes doesn’t mean you weren’t still the skinny guy from Brooklyn. He’s what  _made_ you such a great Captain America… Maybe the outer picture’s not the same, but the inner one is.” She smiled at him sincerely. “And trust me, even if Bruce doesn’t figure out a way to reverse this, or re-do this, I’m not really sure what it’d be called, there are still plenty of ways you can help. You’re a strategist, you’re a soldier, sometimes that doesn’t mean being on the front lines. But you’re not useless. Not even slightly.” 

"My whole purpose was being Captain America. Being on this team. I wouldn’t even be here without the serum." 

"Then big ‘thanks’ to the serum, but your life doesn’t end just because you lose some weight and a few inches off the top. The team is still your family and being Captain America might’ve given you purpose, but it wasn’t your whole life." 

He hummed, staring down into his drink. “Maybe.” 

"So sulky. Is that a side-effect of being de-buffed?" 

He rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched. 

"Come on," she said, hopping off her chair. 

"Where are we going?" he wondered, turning on his stool. 

"About ten feet that direction…" She thrust a thumb over her shoulder. "We’re gonna dance, because dancing always makes me feel better, and you need it." 

"Pity dance," he sighed. "Thanks, but no." 

"It’s not a pity dance." She put one hand on her hip and reached over with her other to take his. "You think I didn’t want to dance with you just as much when you were all muscled up? Because I did. There just wasn’t much of an opportunity for me to ask." 

He let her pull him out onto the floor, or maybe he just wasn’t strong enough to stop her. She turned to face him, placing one of his hands on her hip and raising the other up with hers. 

"Good?" she asked, her brows hiked curiously. 

His fingers flexed on her hip, the fabric of her top soft as butter under his fingers. “Mmhmm.” 

"Okay." She stepped left and waited for him to follow, and then she stepped back, pause, stepped right, pause, stepped forward. He caught on, even if he spent too much time looking at their feet.

She brought their knit hands over and tucked them under his chin to raise it. Without the previous height different, now they were eye to eye. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t wanted to dance with Darcy before. That he hadn’t taken notice of her from the moment she showed up at Stark Tower. She was loud and brash and happy to say whatever came to her mind. She was also beautiful and protective of those close to her. He’d wanted to ask her out for dinner or dancing or something, but he was always so busy and the timing never seemed right. It’d be just his luck that the first time they really get some time alone, he was nothing like the strong Captain America she was used to seeing. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of who he was, because he wasn’t, but it made things difficult, and the downsides to being his skinny-self were many and painfully apparent. 

"You’re not bad at this," she told him. 

Of course, as soon as he clued back in to the fact that he was dancing, he stepped on her foot. He sighed. “Sorry, my co-ordination isn’t as good as it used to be.” 

She grinned. “Okay,  _grandpa_.” 

He rolled his eyes at her, but he smiled all the same. 

"You know, it’s not all bad, you being like this." 

"No?" He raised an eyebrow. "Give me on thing I’ve got on Cap. Just one." 

She stared up at him a moment and then she stepped in a little closer. “At least at this height, I can put my head on your shoulder,” she said, and then she did exactly that. 

The song played on in the background, and three more followed, while he danced with a pretty dame around the floor, his cheek resting on her soft, dark hair. 

Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Even if he had wire-thin arms that tired from doing much of anything, he still had them wrapped around Darcy. That wasn’t something he’d ever complain about.


	12. "do you trust me?"

The thing is, they don’t know each other  _terribly_ well. They’ve talked, they have mutual friends, he occasionally interrupts her while she’s wrangling Tony away from whatever project he’s on in order to tear His Snarkiness away for an Avengers meeting, but she wouldn’t classify her and Steve as  _friends_ , per se. Acquaintances. She’s,  _at least_ , a step up from the lackeys around Stark Tower that still sort of stare after him in awe. She treats him like a human, just another guy around the tower who’s ridiculously good at soldiering and saving people and being all strong and smart and stupidly handsome.

So, they’re not friends, but they know each other as more than just a passing face on the street. She calls him Steve, occasionally ‘Cap’ if he’s interrupting her ‘No, seriously, Tony, if I have to hide one more soldering tool from you, I’m going to tape your hands together. It’s snack time, now eat your orange slices or I’ll send you to the corner and call Pepper on you!’ which is, well, at least 50% of her job. He calls her Darcy, after a few too many ‘Miss. Lewis’s’ that resulted in her thinking her mother was somewhere in the building and subsequently ducking around corners to avoid her. 

They are not, however, the type of people who run off, hand in hand, to avoid danger together. At least, they weren’t.

She has an apartment outside of Stark Tower. Technically, she shares it with Jane. Only Jane spends most of her time at the tower, with Thor, so it’s more like she has her own apartment and a spare room filled with boxes Jane’s never gotten around to unpacking. It’s mostly filled with clothes and old paperwork from projects she’s no longer focused on or saved school work from her college days. Darcy might organize everything at the lab, in her own Janeified filing system, but there’s no way she’s touching those boxes full of crazy confusion. 

She’s at home when it happens. In fact, she’d just finished a very long day of scientist wrangling. She’s in her pajamas, the mismatched ones with Captain America shields all over the legs, and a t-shirt with Iron Man’s helmet on it, but she never tells him that because a) he’s narcissistic enough, and b) he’d make a joke about guarding her boobs. She’s also eating a bowl of Fruit Loops when her front door is suddenly exploded off its hinges. Literally, it flies across the room, topples a table with a few pictures on it, and takes out her television.  _Assholes_. 

Her reaction is pretty simple. “ _Eep_.” And then she drops her cereal bowl and sprints down the hall behind her. She has no idea who it is or why they’re there (she’s willing to put her money on Jane and her stupid, genius brain), but she knows she needs to get out of there. 

She makes it into her bedroom before her plan fails epically. For one thing, the fire escape does not attach to her bedroom. The only escape route they have is directly outside of Jane’s bedroom window; the one that is pretty much perpetually stuck in never-going-to-open-just-stop-trying. So now she’s just stuck in her bedroom, pulling at her t-shirt nervously, wishing she hadn’t left her phone on the kitchen counter or her purse, with her (totally illegal) taser sitting on the arm chair in the living room. 

But then she hears a commotion, and it’s not just the heavy footsteps of armed thugs racing down the hallway to get her. It’s of  _said_ armed thugs getting attacked. She can hear a loud  _ping_ noise, followed by multiple gunshots, and she’s not the least bit ashamed of saying she hit the ground, covered her head, and army-crawled her ass to her closet to hide. Only her closet was full of junk. Semi-important junk, but that really doesn’t matter in the face of being gunned down. 

And then there were hammering footsteps followed by her door being thrown open so hard that it slams against the far wall; she was pretty sure the handle went through the plaster.

"Darcy!?" 

And, wow, okay, she knows that voice. She ducks her head out from the closet she just barely managed to cram herself into. “Steve?” 

He exhales a heavy breath of relief and then holds a hand out to her, his other arm bearing the weight of his shield. “Come on. We have to go. There are more coming.”

She stares at his hand, maybe longer than strictly necessary. Except that, not five minutes ago, she was just at home, having a quiet freaking night, with Fruit Loops in hand and a DVR of awesome television to catch up on. And now she had Captain  _freaking_  America saving her ass from possibly ( _definitely_ ) murderous bad guys. 

"Who are they?  _Were_ they? Oh, god, are they dead? No, wait, I shouldn’t care about that, right? I mean, they were probably going to kill me. Probably. Maybe.  _Right_? Is- Is this about Jane? Is she okay!? I— How did you even know to come here?”

"I will explain everything later, I promise, but Darcy, I need you to calm down and just listen to me, all right?" He squeezes her hand, and hey, when did she reach out and take that? "We need to get out of here. I might be able to fight them, but that leaves you an open target." When she opens her mouth, he holds a hand up, "I know, you have your taser, and Stark improved it and everything, but this isn’t just one person, at a distance. This is a lot of people, up close and personal. You’re not prepared for that, and frankly, I’m not prepared to fight them while worrying about you. So, I need you to come with me, right now…"

She stares at him, searchingly, because panic and adrenaline are warring inside of her. Part of her says to go, to stop asking questions, to just take his hand and let him take her wherever he needs to get her safe. Another part of her is too damn curious for its own good and it wants answers and explanations and maybe a gun of her own, ‘cause  _fuck_  whoever thought they could come into her damn apartment, shoot it up, and threaten to kill/maim/interrogate her for whatever stupid reasons they had.

This was not supposed to happen to her. She was a poli sci student who interned with some frantic, tiny little scientist out to study stars, and then she met Thor and things went haywire and whatever life she might’ve thought she’d have is totally different from the one she has. And she’s not completely sure she’s complaining. Sure, when this happens, armed bad guys and all that jazz, it seems like a really awful mistake, but she loves her job and Jane and she’s good at what she does, so maybe it’s not all bad. But do the pros outweigh the cons? Right now, it doesn’t seem that way.

"Darcy?"

She looks up and he’s staring at her. Steve, who always looks so in control and strong and with that stubborn chin that’s all bravery and tragedy and trying to live past it. “Do you trust me?” he asks. 

And she should probably say no. She should probably say they don’t know each other enough. That they need to have a few more in-depth conversations, maybe some coffee, share backgrounds that aren’t on SHIELD-issue paper, before trust is even an option. Because this isn’t Captain America asking, contrary to the whole him-kicking-ass-and-saving-her thing. This is  _Steve_. 

Steve who sighs whenever he has to deal with Tony. Who writes down a lot of what she says so he can Google it later and takes her lighthearted teasing good-naturedly. Who talks about baseball more than she’s ever wanted to hear about it. Who, somehow, manages to look unflappable, despite everything he’s been through. Steve whose mouth tilts up on one side and whose eyes always duck when his smile is genuine. Who looks a little like an excited puppy when he gets a pop culture references. Who tilts his chin up a little higher when someone disagrees with him or says something he doesn’t like. And hey, maybe she knows him a little better than she thought… 

The point is, this was Steve, not Cap, not the guy in the (grossly exaggerated) history books, and he was asking her to trust him with her life. 

She squeezes his hand a little tighter and says, “Yes.” 

And he smiles, his mouth tilting on one side and his eyes ducking. ”Okay.” He looks at her then and it’s all business. 

Logically, she knows that doesn’t mean she’s going to survive or that they’ll make it out of this. But she’d put her money on exactly that, illogical or not, because she does trust him, and she knows he’s worth that trust. 


	13. pretend marriage

It wasn’t the pretending that was hard. It was the aftermath. It was remembering not to reach for her, not to put an arm around her waist or take her hand or lean down and nuzzle his face against her neck or his nose against her cheek. It was remembering that he wasn’t allowed to kiss her anymore. That she wasn’t his wife. She was never his wife. She was his partner. They were fake. It was all fake. The way she leaned into him when they stood together, how her hand always found his forearm when he made her laugh, how he woke up, every morning, with her cheek on his chest and her hand resting on his stomach. 

The job was over. The bad guy was caught. The six weeks they spent pretending to be Mr and Mrs had gone off without a hitch. 

Except that he couldn’t forget her.

He couldn’t get her out of his head. He couldn’t forget how good it felt, the way his hand fit on her waist. How her hair always smelled like vanilla and coconut. And that perfume of hers, soft and faint, like wisps of wildflowers he only caught if he tried really hard. He couldn’t forget that boisterous laugh of hers, a little bawdy and a lot genuine, not the least bit apologetic for the way it drew attention, drew eyes, drew appreciation like nothing else. 

Darcy was real. She was all snark and sarcasm and confidence that left his mouth dry as he struggled not to reach for her, to grab her up and yank the zipper of her dress down to the small of her back. To ruck her skirt up to her waist and feel her knees dig into his sides as he pressed her back, fitting himself between silky soft thighs.

He wanted her. From the moment he met her, yes, but since having her close enough to call his own, since telling others that she was his wife, since his hands became familiar with her curves and his breath tangled with hers as he leaned down and kissed lips that molded to his like they were made for only each others. 

He missed the way she bit his lip when he tried to pull back, like she knew she shouldn’t, but she didn’t want to let him go. He missed the way his fingers tangled in her hair and that hitch in her breath when he pressed her against the wall, his hand delving under her dress and skimming up her thigh, fingers twisting in the straps of her garters. 

For six weeks, she was his wife. And he wanted it. He wanted the real her for a lot longer. He wanted to stop remembering and missing and wishing for things that had happened and were over. 

He found her in the communal kitchen at Stark Tower. He’d seen her a number of times since their mission ended, but this was different. Her hair tied up in a loose bun; she was wearing the same pajamas she wore the last night they were together. A cup of steaming coffee sat by her hip and a plate of half-eaten toast was next to it. She always made two pieces, but only ate one, feeding him the second one and laughing as she wiped the jam from his chin. Marmalade. She loved marmalade. He had a taste for it now too. 

She looked up as he walked toward her and smiled warmly, reaching for the second piece of toast. “Hungry?” she asked, swinging her legs a little. 

And he nodded. But he didn’t lean down for a bite like he usually did. He stepped up in between her parted knees, his hands braced on either side of her, gripping tight to the counter. And he kissed her. He leaned in and caught her lips in a familiar, slanting, reaching dance. She hummed, a little in surprise, a lot in pleasure, and then the toast fell back to the plate and her arms were wrapped around his shoulders and her fingers were digging into and gripping his shirt. He didn’t care if they were sticky, if there was a marmalade mess on his shirt. He didn’t care for anything except chasing her lips wherever they might go. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, until every inch of her was pressed to him, familiar and wanted and even better than he remembered. 

When they pulled apart, she was flushed, her lips a little swollen and her eyes half-lidded. “Is this practice for the next fake marriage mission?” she asked, her voice more than a little thick. 

Steve shook his head. “No, this is practice for the real thing.” 

Darcy grinned, leaning in, and kissed him again, tugging on his lip with her teeth.

This time she didn’t let go, and neither did he. 


	14. pillow fort

Darcy was a fan of pillow forts. Maybe it was something that hung on from childhood, or maybe it was the way it managed to block out the rest of the world and create its own tiny, compact little hideaway in the very center of everything. In any case, she was a fan, which was why she built one in the lab and holed up inside it after a long day. 

Jane had gone home (exactly twenty-three floors up and down a long hallway, wherein a red-caped hero also resided and the walls were very soundproofed for good reason). The lab rats had followed her example, but Darcy lingered. She wasn’t ready to go home and, after a long day (week/year/ _life_ ), she just felt like laying on her makeshift bed of cushions (that she maybe stole from the communal living room) with various lab coats and one (emergency) blanket scattered over her desk and a few chairs, to create her little piece of quiet. 

She wasn’t holed up long before she heard a throat clearing nearby. The swish of the airlocked door was the first sign and the lights turning on could be seen through the fabric of the lab coats. 

"Yeah?" she answered. 

"Permission to enter?" 

Her lips twitched. “Permission granted, Captain.” 

Steve crawled inside, careful not to disturb her (somewhat haphazard) building job, and flopped down beside her, his head close to hers. He was unnaturally large next to her, and his grace was just a tiny bit (a lot, actually) offensive when she maybe toppled three chairs trying to get into her own creation.

"Bad day?" he asked.

She hummed, shrugging a little. “Just long.” 

"You wanna talk about it?" he offered. 

She might’ve sighed a little, and it had everything to do with the fact that he was completely genuine when he asked.

She turned over onto her side to face him and, instead of answering his question, wondered, “How’d you know it was me in here?”

His mouth turned up on one side, in a crooked smile that was entirely too attractive. “Well, aside from the fact that it was  _your_ desk, and everybody knows better than to touch your things… I can’t imagine anybody else building a pillow fort in here  _but_  you.” 

Her nose wrinkled. “Is that a subtle hint that I’m on the immature side?” 

"No." He shook his head, turning over to face her better, and wow, his eyes were entirely too blue. "No, it’s just… very  _you_.” He cast his eyes around and smiled lightly. “And I like it.” 

Nodding faintly, she turned back over onto her back. “All right. Nice save. You have permission to visit my forts in future, Captain Rogers.” 

"It’s a privilege, ma’am," he said, offering up his ‘aw shucks’ grin, that only made her snort and bump his shoulder. 

She was quiet for a few minutes then, enjoying the peace and the comfort of having Steve close. Plus, the close quarters meant that every breath was filled with the faint scent of his cologne. To say he smelled good would be an understatement. But, alas, pillow forts and sharing them with super (fine) soldiers were not made for forever.

"Do you think they’d deliver me a pizza in here?" she wondered.

He chuckled lowly. “How about I take you out for pizza?” he offered. 

Grinning, she nodded. “Sounds good. Keep it up and I might just invite you into Fort Lewis.” 

He choked on air a bit, but she chose to ignore it (if by ignore she meant  _grin proudly_ ), even though she knew that  _he_  knew she didn’t mean the one in Tacoma, Washington so much as the one in her pants. 


	15. best. night. ever.

Darcy was grinning when she let herself into the apartment, in last night’s clothes, her hair a mess and a soft look in her eyes that gave her away. She fell back against the door as it closed and bit her lip. 

Jane smiled back at her fro where she sat on the couch. “9 am walk of shame, should I clap or scold you?” 

Darcy pushed off the door and kicked her shoes in the general direction of where they kept them, making her way into their living room and plopping down on the couch beside Jane. “Best. Night.  _Ever_ ,” she declared. 

Hugging her coffee to her chest, Jane raised an eyebrow. “Really? This from the girl who was pretty sure she’d have nothing in common with strait-laced Captain Rogers?” 

"Okay, first of all,  _totally_  pegged him all wrong. Seriously, he’s not strait-laced, like, at all. I mean, he can play the ‘aw shucks’ routine really well, especially when he’s trying to get the pissed off and impatient waitress to be nicer to us. But he’s not at all the strict, boring, apple-pie guy I kind of thought he’d be.”

"No?" Jane stirred the spoon in her coffee. "So, what? The nice guy thing’s just a shtick?" 

"Not a shtick. He’s definitely a good guy. He’s just… He’s not that All-American, do-no-wrong kind of guy that the media paints him to be, y’know? Like, no-nonsense and stiff. He’s actually got this really dry sense of humor and he always looks so proud of hiself when he makes me laugh and he did, a lot. And, I don’t know, it just… It was awesome." 

"Must’ve been if you’re only getting back now…" Jane reminded, wiggling her eyebrows. 

Darcy grinned wider. “That’s the best part. Instead of having sex, we spent the entire night making pillow forts and having sword fights.” With an all too wistful sigh, she flopped back on the couch. “I think I’m in love.”

Jane chuckled under her breath. “Well, if anything could get you to settle down, it’d be pillow forts and sword fights.” 

"He had a battle plan, Jane. He literally made up a strategy to beat me at play sword fighting… And when his plan didn’t work, he kissed me to distract me, and then fake stabbed me! I might’ve dramatically died and cursed his betrayal, but it only made him laugh. Do you know how awesome that is?" 

"Pretty awesome," Jane agreed, smiling at her. 

"We talked for hours in that pillow fort. I fell asleep at like 4 am while he told me stories about his childhood." Darcy sat up abruptly then, her face lit up excitedly. "Oh my God, have you ever seen pictures? Skinny!Steve was so freaking cute!" She shoved off the couch and hurried down the hall to get her laptop from her bedroom. "I have to show you, seriously." 

Jane grinned at her best friend/assistant/roommate’s retreating back, listening to her ramble on and on about how amazing her date was and how great Steve was. Jane listened to every detail, smiling encouragingly. Because damn it, Darcy deserved this. She deserved a good guy that made her laugh and smile and took her on fun dates.

Also, if she and Steve worked out, then they could go on that double date Thor had been asking for the last few weeks. So, win/win.


	16. (au) steve recruits darcy

[Moved. Now a standalone story being expanded on](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1791100/chapters/3839623).


	17. unexpected first kiss

Darcy was browsing through the books laid out on a table just outside of the door to her favorite bookstore. The marked down collection they were trying to get rid of to make room for other stock was always her first stop. She already had a few in her right hand as she searched, brow furrowed, mouth moving along with her as she read the titles and authors in her heads, turning a few over to see if they had a summary.

She’d just toppled a leaning stack accidentally, reaching eagerly as she spotted a familiar writer’s name, when she was abruptly spun around to face— someone’s very broad chest in a stretchy, grey work-out shirt, only partly covered with a jacket that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of his outfit at all.

Brows furrowed, she tipped her head back to see a handsome, panting man in front of her, his bright blue eyes darting around before focusing on her and staring at her searchingly. Handsome or not, she opened her mouth to ask him what the big deal was, when he suddenly leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers. His lips were firm, but unmoving. Possibly the flattest kiss she’d had since sixth grade, when Jimmy Craig had mashed his mouth against hers and just stood there, counting down for ten excruciatingly long seconds before pulling back. Worst kiss  _ever_. 

Handsome Stranger was not quite on the same par as Jimmy, but the lack of mouth movement and the overwhelming ‘what the fuck’ feeling of the situation was not helping things. He was tense, his hand tightly squeezing her hip, especially when she heard harried voices in the background. 

It occurred to her suddenly what was happening. This guy, who was possibly  _two_ of her, was trying to  _hide_ from someone. As if that were an actual thing that could happen when he was the size of a small mountain with a mug kissed by the Gods. She would put money on it that the jacket he was wearing wasn’t his and his kiss-a-stranger strategy was a last-ditch effort at blending in. 

She rolled her eyes to herself and decided this would be her small act of kindness this week. Raising her hand, now free of her books, since she’d dropped them in the shuffle, she wrapped it behind his neck and tugged, bringing him even closer while she raised herself up to the tips of her toes. Parting her lips, she tipped her head and stroked her tongue over his closed mouth, lightly dabbing it across the seam. He let out a surprised hum, parting his lips for her, and she could feel as his jaw, previously carved of marble, loosened.

Her other hand, she slid down his chest, which,  _wow_ , somebody spent a lot of time at the gym. He could probably give Thor a run for his money. Hitching her hand around his hip, she drew him in closer, so he wasn’t putting a middle-school-dance amount of space between their bodies. He was still a little stiff, his eyes staring down at her in confusion, but he complied with her, shifting himself forward. He reached his other hand out to her, resting it on the curve of her elbow, fingers skimming up her arm, stretched between them. 

Their kiss was a little more relaxed now, his mouth actively moving over hers. And when he put real effort into it, his teeth gently skimming over the dip of her top lip, and his tongue flicking the back of her teeth before it stroked along the roof of her mouth, she felt a shiver run down the whole of her body, making her toes curl in her cute, half-priced sandals. His fingers gripped at the fabric of her shirt a little tighter as he suckled at her bottom lip and she could almost,  _almost_ forget that she didn’t even know him.

But then the voices were moving past them, a harsh reminder, along with various bodies, and Darcy actively avoided looking at them, just in case it drew attention. Instead she lifted her arm up to his shoulder and buried her fingers in his hair, her arms effectively blocking out a good portion of his face. 

A few more seconds passed, but Darcy didn’t let her arm drop until the only noise around her was coming from the traffic and various oblivious passersby. Then, looking up at him, she raised an eyebrow, gave his bottom lip one last nip, and let him go. 

He stared at her as she dropped back down, feet flat on the pavement. His mouth was pink, in part from her lipstick, and his cheeks were flushed, whether from his previous running or their kiss, she couldn’t be sure. Darcy cleared her throat and dropped her gaze from him then, kneeling to gather up her books. Just as quickly, however, he started mumbling apologies and dropped down with her, grabbing them up for her and handing them over. 

"I’m sorry, I… That was rude and completely unfair to you. I… I was just… People are uncomfortable around public displays of affection and I—"

"Was on the run from some thugs and used me like an ace up your sleeve?" she offered, taking the books from his hands. 

He winced. “Yes. And that was… inappropriate and uncalled for and…” His eyes darted past her shoulder. “And I’m really sorry, but I…” He pointed a thumb behind him. 

"You’re still on the run from said thugs and don’t have time to explain." Her mouth twisted in a wry smile.

He nodded, his gaze set ahead and his lips set in a frown. 

"Try not to accost anymore women while you’re at it," she suggested. 

"I really am sorry. I wouldn’t have— I mean, not that you aren’t… You  _are_. This is just a really… complicated… uh, thing, and…”  He waved a hand, screwing his brow up. “I’m explaining this wrong.”

"Weren’t you just about to run from impending danger?" she reminded. 

He nodded quickly and started backing up. “I have to head them off…” he muttered to himself and then looked at her. “Sorry again, ma’am.”

"It’s Darcy," she corrected before turning on her heel and returning to the book table. 

When she looked back, he was already halfway down the block. She watched him go for a moment, her brow furrowed and her mouth turned up in amusement. Well, at least now she had a story to tell Jane when she went back to work on Monday. 

* * *

 

"It’s Darcy, right?" 

"That’s what my mother kept telling me, even though I told her for the first ten years of my life that I would like to be called ‘Starship Trooper Fancy Flowers.’ In fact, I’d still prefer it." Darcy looked up from the paperwork in front of her and paused. "Oh.  _You_.” 

He half-frowned, half-smiled; it was a weird expression, full of uncertainty. “Me.” He opened his mouth, seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say, paused, and then cast his eyes around. “You work for SWORD?” 

She stared at him a long moment. It had been three days since she’d last seen, and kissed, Handsome Stranger, and seeing him at her work had never occurred to her. Why would it? She didn’t imagine she’d ever run into him again. He was just going to be one of my crazy stories added to her personal library. And yet, here he was.

"I work for Jane Foster, who works  _beside_ , there’s an emphasis there, Stark.” Eyes narrowed, she looked around and said, “Did security let you up here? Because, if so, I’m gonna need to talk to them about their policy on letting people in, handsome or not.” 

"Uh, not exactly." He scratched a finger over his temple. "And… thank you, I think." 

She blinked at him and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her desk chair. “This would be a great time for an explanation.”

"Probably more than one, but I think the first one will explain what happened the other day…" 

"I’m listening," she said, looking up at him curiously. 

He held a hand forward. “Steve Rogers. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

Darcy stared at the hand and then looked up at him, and then at his shoulders,  _for reasons_. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard of him. She had. From Thor, and Stark, and various news coverage on the Avengers and what happened in Washington, DC. Now that she was really looking at him, she was definitely kicking herself for not seeing how clearly familiar he was in the first place. She decided to blame the abrupt turn of events for why she hadn’t realized she was kissing  _Captain fucking America_.

“ _The_ Steve Rogers?” It was best to clarify, right?

He gave a short nod. “In some circles, yes.” 

She reached forward to take his hand and shook it. “So the other day, when you were running away…?” 

"There was a situation. One I can’t explain, exactly, but, safe to say, you really helped me out and… I’m sorry it had to happen under those circumstances." He frowned, reaching up to rub a hand at the back of his neck. "That, uh, isn’t how I like to leave an impression." 

"Well, to be honest, you weren’t leaving a great one when it started," she told him, before shrugging. "But you got better." 

His mouth twitched as his eyes fell for a moment. When he raised them again to meet hers, she felt that same shiver she had during their kiss. “Can I claim distraction?”

She shrugged one shoulder and raised her chin. “Depends.” 

"On?" 

"Whether you plan on doing it again under better circumstances." 

He grinned down at her. “Coffee first?” 

Darcy smiled. “Sold.”


	18. neighbors

So as far as meeting her new neighbor went, the circumstances could have been better. Like she could have _not_ been only wearing a towel and locked out of her apartment. She would pay money for that to not be how she met the _really_ cute guy who’d just moved in across the hall. But such was her life, and it did like to fuck with her.

Darcy was dripping. Halfway through her shower, she remembered that she had a load in the washer downstairs and the asshole in 1b always, _always_ seemed to know when she was doing laundry and took hers out of the washer to leave on the gross, dirty floor, instead of being a _human being_ and either putting it in the dryer or at least putting it somewhere that was _not_ the floor. Never mind the fact that there were two washers, one of which was almost _definitely_ empty. No, he had to be a dick, because protocol was that they kept an eye on their laundry, making it their responsibility to switch it over accordingly. She swore he sat around with a timer though, because she could be just five minutes late, and he would still have slunk in and already tossed her sopping wet clothes onto the floor.

For this reason, a very harried, annoyed Darcy ran down three flights of stairs in a towel, dripping and nearly tripping as she went, only to find he had already been and went. Which meant she needed to _re_ -wash her clothes. In the chaos of racing out of her apartment, she’d remembered to grab the change for the washer, but not her keys. And the super, who was actually a pretty nice lady, had updated all the doors in the building so they would automatically lock as soon as a person left, all thanks to an issue with various tenants being robbed. It was a precaution Darcy had liked when it was happening, but not so much now, not when her spare key was in her bag, because she never went anywhere without it, except today, when she had nothing on her but twenty left over cents and a towel that was not mopping up the water dripping from her hair _at all_.

For three minutes, all she did was rest her forehead on her door and curse under her breath with as much creativity as she could muster. Which, for the record, was a _lot_.

“Are you all right?”

She jumped, let out the most unattractive shriek, and hurriedly gripped the close of her towel when it nearly fell from her as she whirled around. “Holy toaster strudel, do you always sneak up on people?”

His mouth tipped at the corner. “Probably more than most people.”

Her brows furrowed. “Congratulations?”

He offered a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Well, I don’t regularly hang out in front of my apartment in just a towel, so that’s probably a big tip off,” she mused.

“I think I would’ve noticed before, so yeah, it is,” he agreed, nodding. “Locked out?”

“No. I just like to have mini breakdowns in the hallway instead of the privacy of my apartment… while half-naked and soaking wet.” Letting out a sigh, she rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I’m snapping at you and you’ve literally done nothing wrong. I just… had to switch my laundry over or—”

“1b would throw it on the floor,” he interrupted knowingly.

“Yes! God, he does it to _you_ too? I thought I just won the asshole lottery or something…” Shoulders slumping a little, she admitted, “No offense, but that actually kind of makes me feel better.”

He snorted. “I guess I can see how that makes sense.” He motioned his key back over his shoulder. “Did you catch it in time, at least?”

Darcy was not above sticking out her bottom lip like a pouting toddler. “ _No_ , I didn’t.”

He frowned. “Luck’s really not on your side today.”

Shivering as water sluiced down her arm from her hair, she bit her lip and shook her head. “Not really.”

“I’m sorry. You must be cold. Uh…” He stripped his jacket off, tugging it down his arms and held it out to her. “Here. It’s not much, but…”

“So chivalry’s not dead, huh?” She pulled the jacket on over the towel and shivered a little as the warmth sunk into her skin and the faint scent of cologne tickled her nose.

He smiled wryly. “I’d like to think it isn’t…” He nodded his chin forward then and said, “I might actually be able to get your door open, if you want. I’d suggest just waiting in my apartment until the super gets back, but I just talked to her yesterday and she mentioned her and her daughter would be at Coney Island all day, so…”

“You think you can get the door open?” Darcy pulled the jacket around herself a little tighter, keeping a good grip on it just in case the towel decided to slip out from beneath it. “Should I be worried about where you might be picking up those tricks?”

“Uh, work,” he said, before frowning. “It’s for good reasons, I promise.”

She snorted. “Which is probably what the bad guys say to put people at ease.”

His brows raised. “I’m just digging myself a hole here, aren’t I?”

“I’ll toss you a rope to climb out if you get my door open. Soggy isn’t my best look.”

He glanced at her, eyes sweeping over her quickly, and then muttered, “Arguable,” under his breath before he cleared his throat and made his way into his own apartment. When he came back, he had a few tools in hand and dropped to his knees by her door handle. Not exactly the first time she’d thought of him on his knees in front of her, but the circumstances were different in her head. Hey, she had a healthy appreciation for the guy across the way, and up close, he was even better. Nobody could blame her.

“So, jewel thief, bank robber, or James Bond?” she wondered, leaning against the wall, one foot tucked behind her ankle as she watched him work.

“You don’t think I’d have a penthouse in Manhattan if I was any of those?”

“I don’t know. You strike me as more of a down-to-earth kind of guy. So maybe you’re doing the dangerous stuff for the adrenaline rush instead of the money.”

“You caught me. I’m an adrenaline junkie. I frequently jump out of planes and risk my life for various causes. I’ve got a motorcycle downstairs to prove it.”

“Yeah? Anything for a rush, huh?”

He tipped his head and looked over at her, starting at her knee and climbing her bare thigh before he raised his eyes up the length of her body, swamped in his jacket. “Some things more than others.”

She bit her lip as he finally reached her face, something heavy and promising in his eyes that she very much wanted to take him up on. And then her door swung open, unlocked, and her gaze darted away, lighting up.

She smiled. “Look at you. Miracle worker.”

“I aim to please.”

Darcy looked up at him as he stood, broad shouldered and handsome with a stubborn chin and playful blue eyes. “You spend a lot of time saving damsels in distress, neighbor?”

“Only the cute ones I’ve been hoping I’d run into since I moved in,” he answered.

She grinned. “I’m Darcy, by the way.” She held a hand out for him to shake.

He took it and squeezed lightly, his thumb stroking over hers. “Steve,” he introduced.

It was then that the towel she had under his jacket took an abrupt plunge to the floor, not that she could blame it, it was only doing what her underwear would have gladly done in the same situation. “And there went the last shred of her dignity,” she sighed, tipping her head back and closing her eyes.

He chuckled lowly. “I don’t know… I think you make my jacket look a lot better than I ever have.”

Raising her head, she looked up at him, brow raised. “I can strut down the hall and make this into a fashion show, but with my luck, I’ll hit a puddle and break my leg.”

He licked his lips to hide his amusement and ducked his eyes, but she could see the humor in the lines of his face and it made her feel a little better about the ridiculous situation she found herself in. “Maybe another time,” he suggested.

“Maybe. Although I’m not sure I’d like to repeat at least half of this experience.”

He nodded agreeably. “How much time do you have before your wash is done?”

She shrugged. “Forty minutes, but I’ll probably go down in thirty just to be sure. So enough time to finish my shower and scrape up what’s left of my pride before trying this again.”

He shrugged. “If it helps, this is one of my more memorable first meetings.”

“My mom always said to leave an impression on people, but, somehow, I don’t think this was what she meant…”

He chuckled. “Well, it worked anyway.”

She stared up at him a long moment and then shook her head. “I should really get that shower, and find clothes. I’ll, uh, drop your jacket off later.”

“Sure, whenever’s convenient.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Like I said, it looks better on you.”

“Well, it’s a little big, but that’s usually how I like ‘em.” The grin she gave him was just as suggestive as she wanted it to be before she stepped past him into her apartment.

He watched her go, his eyes a little darker and his teeth digging into his lower lip. He scraped a hand down his mouth and cleared his throat. “It was nice meeting you, Darcy.”

“You too, Steve.” She ducked down to grab her wet towel and looked up at him from beneath her lashes as she stood once more. “Thanks for the save.”

“Anytime.”

She grinned and, just before she closed the door, said, “I might take you up on that.”

If the look on his face was anything to go by, he was _really_ looking forward to that.


	19. miscommunication (explicit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [[1](http://www.polyvore.com/darcy_oneshot/set?id=131940582)] [[2](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=131940603)]

Darcy was avoiding him. In fact, she felt a little proud of just how well her avoidance tactics were working. Of course, Stark Tower had so many floors with so many doors she could duck through, it really wasn’t all that difficult to disappear when necessary. Still, there were some places she couldn’t avoid being. Like work. She just hadn’t thought he’d return to the scene of the crime, especially during office hours.

She should have though. It was a solid ambush tactic with little reason to fail, which was just the kind of way he thought. Not that he hadn’t attempted a few other ways to find her that had less chance of working. Where he was actively searching her out, she was actively avoiding any chance of awkward conversation. Not that she wanted to avoid him, exactly. She considered Steve a friend. A very good friend. Like, one of her closest. They had weekend movie marathons and favorite restaurants and inside jokes; this was not a casual acquaintance but a very real, very important person in her life. And she understood that he was just under a lot of pressure. His many, many attempts to track down Bucky had failed. Weeks became months became an entire year, and he was struggling with that, stressing out over it, and he’d just... needed a little relief.

Which was all it was, really. She’d gone over it a few hundred times in her head. How it went from innocent and friendly to intense and not at _all_ friendly. She’d been at work late, issues with paperwork that she would rather deal with immediately than have it sitting in her mental to-do box. Of course, paperwork always ended up taking longer than it _should_ , and before she knew it dinnertime had come and gone, leaving her behind. She was already mentally preparing to call for late take-out when she heard the knuckles knock against the door. Turning, she found Steve there, half-smiling in that exhausted way of his.

“Hey soldier, what brings you to the science labs?” she greeted.

“Didn’t see you around, thought Jane might still have you down here working...” he answered.

Her nose wrinkled. “This one’s not on Jane. All me and my mental library of ‘crap that needs doing, so you should probably do it already.’”

Steve’s mouth turned up faintly. “Done then?”

She shook her head. “Just about. I have a few more I’s to dot and T’s to cross before I file everything and try to get home at a respectable hour.”

“It’s after nine. How respectable are you shooting for?” he wondered, brow raised.

“You know me; I’m a night owl anyway.” She shrugged, taking a seat on the edge of her desk. “So? You look like you wanna talk... Did something happen? Another tip come in?”

He shook his head, leaning in the doorway, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “There’s always another tip... and another dead end to match.”

“Careful Captain Optimistic, you’re sounding a little defeated...” She eyed him thoughtfully before pushing a chair toward him with her foot. “Talk to Doctor Darcy, lay it all out.”

He closed the door and stepped into her office, but bypassed the chair to stand in front of her. “It just feels like I’m stuck in neutral... I keep trying and looking and I’m not getting anywhere...” He smiled, but it was sad, empty. “I don’t know how to do that. I don’t... I’m used to taking action. Even... Even before the serum, when I was just this skinny kid from Brooklyn, I still ran head-first into everything. But now it feels like I just keep hitting brick walls.”

“So maybe it’s not a matter of running ahead, maybe you need to be standing still.”

His brow furrowed.

“Look, you’re chasing after a guy who’s probably freaked out of his mind and has been trained to the max to stay under the radar. He’s not going to be found until he _wants_ to be found, and... chances are, he’ll come to you.”

He frowned. “What if he doesn’t?”

“You know him better than I do. Is he the kind of guy who lets himself get chased down or who does things on his own terms?”

He smiled faintly then. “His own terms. Always.”

She nodded. “Well, maybe you need to give him some space. If he’s not always outrunning you, maybe he’ll start chasing you.”

“Or he’ll think I gave up.”

Darcy snorted, tipping her head up to look at him, her brow arched. “Steve, I don’t care how little memory he has, if he remembers nothing else, he’ll remember that surrendering isn’t your style. Hopefully he just takes the time to figure out what he wants to do. I mean, you’re not the only one chasing him. He might just need a breather before he decides to come in.”

He swallowed tightly, nodding faintly. “I just...”

“Don’t want to lose him,” she said knowingly.

“Yeah.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t tell you this if I really thought you would. I just... I don’t know. I want you to get him back, I do, but I also don’t want to see you beating yourself up every time you go out and come back empty-handed. You’re tired... And you blame yourself. But this isn’t on you. So kicking yourself repeatedly isn’t going to fix anything. Just leaves you with more bruises than you deserve.”

“I heal quick,” he joked, but it was hollow, followed by a shrug.

“Mental bruises are what I’m talking about here, Rogers.” She leaned back, hands braced on the desk. “You need a break. Take a vacation, get some sun, take Sam for shawarma, meet a nice girl, just get a breather from this, and maybe when you come back, you’ll feel better.”

“Yeah,” he said, his brow furrowed as his eyes fell to the floor for a moment.

“You know, usually people look excited by the idea of a vacation.” She hopped down from her desk, surprised for a moment by just how close they were. Their thighs were touching, his feeling much firmer than her own, even through a layer of denim. Tipping her head up to see him, she found him staring back with an oddly intense look on his face. She cleared her throat and said, “It doesn’t even have to be long. You just... You need to take care of yourself.”

He licked his lips, nodding faintly as he stared at her searchingly. “You worried about me?” he wondered, his voice a little deeper, almost husky.

She tamped down on a shiver. “I... Of course.” Oh god, she _squeaked_ that out. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t want you to be happy?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, turning around, giving him her back as she stretched across her desk for a stack of papers.

She felt his fingers at her hair then, brushing it off her back and over one shoulder. That time, she couldn't suppress the shiver that stole down her body.

When she stood upright once more, he was pressed to her back, warm and firm. “Darcy...”

“Hmmm?” she managed, biting down on her bottom lip as she felt his fingers drag down her back.

This was not normal. For them, anyway. They weren’t... They’d been friends since he and Sam had showed up at Stark Tower, looking for some help while he tracked down Bucky. Their relationship was platonic. Not that she hadn’t thought about it. She had. A lot. Mostly at night, after a long day and a raid of her bedside table for her vibrator. Steve was... handsome, sure. Like _wow_ handsome, too. But he was also smart and snarky and he had such a good heart. So yeah, after a while, her feelings for him had become less platonic, but she kept that under wraps. He didn’t need one of his friends gushing over him while he was dealing with the Bucky situation. There was enough on his plate. And she’d always thought he only saw her as a friend anyway.

Only now his hands were wrapping around her sides, so big and warm through the thin fabric of her shirt, and his chin was dragging down her neck to rest on her shoulder. She could feel his breath on her skin, feel his fingers skimming down her waist. She shivered, her eyes falling to half-mast, and leaned her head back, so it fell against his shoulder. This was a bad idea. Terrible, even. Yes, she told him to find a way to de-stress and even to find a girl, but she didn’t mean _her_. She meant to borrow Stark’s jet and take some time on a sandy beach somewhere, sipping piña colada’s and hooking up with some beautiful, nameless, exotic stranger until the system rebooted and he could get back to muddying his boots in his footrace to track down his best friend.

Still, even as her brain yelled at her that this was not territory they should be treading into lightly, especially considering just how vested her heart already was, she didn’t protest when he started tugging her shirt up from the waist of her skirt. She didn’t pull away when his lips mouthed soft kisses over her neck. Instead she leaned into his touch, she hummed appreciatively over his mouth. She dropped her hands to the desk in front of her, bending herself forward, and she decided to deal with the fallout after and enjoy herself now.

He was so hard; she shifted her hips just to feel him pressed up against her, his hands flexing on her hips. He muffled a groan against her throat, his nose dragging under her ear, and she parted her legs in invitation. She wished she was facing him so she could touch him too, even if looking him in the eye while their friendship effectively crumbled beneath them wasn’t exactly high on her list.

He pushed her shirt up her body, his fingertips dragging on her skin as he reached up her back to undo the clasp of her bra. He hesitated, waiting for a protest, but when all she did was press her back up into his fingers, he followed through. And then his hands were on her stomach, spread flat against her, sweeping up her body and shoving her bra out of the way. His palms cupped around her breasts, thumbs stroking broadly before rubbing heavy circles around her nipples. Her breath hitched as she arched herself forward, the pressure of his hands feeling so good.

With her shirt still up and out of the way, his mouth was free to kiss down her back, teeth scraping here or there, soothed by the stroke of his tongue. She circled her hips, rubbing her ass back against him, getting a nice rhythm going in time with the movement of his thumbs. What she wouldn’t give to have his mouth on her, teeth and lips plucking at her nipples as her own fingers sunk between her thighs. Just the image of it made her thighs shake. And then, as if he could read her mind, one of his hands slid down her stomach, reaching for the end of her skirt and dragging it up. His knuckles dragged along her thigh, slow and teasing, before finally he was cupping her, fingers pressed up tight over her underwear. God, she already felt so wet. A noise left her throat that she might have been embarrassed about if she had it in her to care about anything other than how good she felt.

He rubbed his fingers back and forth and around in circles, so slow, _too_ slow. It was something, it was great, but it wasn’t enough. His fingers finally pulled the fabric to the side and slid down her slit, parting her. And having him touch her, finally, felt so good that she lifted up onto her tip toes for a moment, her muscles tensed before she let out a whoosh of breath and dropped back down. Her entire focus narrowed to every little stroke of his fingers moving over her, in every direction, with no set pattern, content to explore every wet inch, sporadically rubbing her clit before sweeping away before she could enjoy it too much. And she knew he was doing it on purpose; he let out a deep chuckle as he kissed the nape of her neck.

He seemed to be a fan of taking his time and she wasn’t complaining, not really. She felt like she was probably getting more out of this than he was. He was still fully clothed, even if his t-shirts were always thin enough that they might as well not exist. And while he hips moving against him might feel good, she doubted it was as much as he wanted.

She could feel it when he finally set his focus on making her come apart. He teased one finger into her, moving it slowly, gently, until she was comfortable with it, and then he added a second. His thumb meanwhile had moved closer and closer to her clit, rubbing all around and over, until he was so familiar with her clit that she wouldn’t be surprised if he could draw a picture of it, of her pussy, with just the knowledge his fingers had gathered. His teeth scraped over the crook of her neck meeting her shoulder, and his fingers plucked her nipple, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. And maybe it was the build-up or maybe it was him, but when it finally hit its crescendo, his fingers curving with every deep thrust, she swore her vision went white for a few seconds. She let out a silent cry, her mouth hanging open and her eyes squeezed shut.

He was rubbing her lower back when her breath finally rushed back into her lungs, one palm rubbing soothing circles, and it was almost too much. Too familiar and intimate. Which, sure, yes, given the circumstances, seemed kind of stupid. But they’d just gone from friends to... what? He’d just fingered her while she was bent over her desk. Was there a name for that?

If there wasn’t, she didn’t have time to come up with a snappy one, because then his palm was rubbing over her stomach and his other hand was lifting her skirt and dragging her red thong down her thighs. She didn’t want him to stop. Bring the awkwardness on later, the conversations about how they were only friends and they should forget this ever happened, she’d deal with it all after. Because right now, all she wanted was to feel him inside her. Those hands she loved so much, watching them draw anything and everything, long fingers smudged with charcoal or gripped around a pencil, she wanted to feel them on her hips as he fucked her.

And that was exactly what she got. Between fumbling for a condom from her purse and him unzipping his jeans, it all moved quickly, with little time to talk themselves or each other out of it, before he was pressing up inside her, stretching her so good, panting against her neck and her shoulder as he sunk into her to the hilt. Shit, yes, score one for her imagination and its accurate assumption on what he was packing under the tights.

“Not tights,” he muttered, nipping at her earlobe.

And she laughed, her head falling forward. The noise was cut off as he pulled out only to thrust back in, quicker and deeper. Her legs bumped the edge of the desk, and she knew there would be bruises, not just from her desk but from how tightly his hands were holding her hips, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she kind of liked it. The odds of them doing this again were slim, so she’d enjoy the brief visual reminder that hey, it wasn’t all in her head.

While he’d been slow and teasing beforehand, now he was set and focused. Fucking was an apt word, because there were no flowery words or light, gentle explorations of hands on skin. His endgame was getting off and getting her off in the process and she could appreciate that. She could _really_ appreciate everything that was happening, because he felt _amazing_ and, despite many a fantasy about it, this was totally the first time she was having sex on a desk, which was actually really working for her. Sure, she wouldn’t turn down a bed with soft sheets and slow, thorough lovemaking, but she wouldn’t say this wasn’t doing the job for her. It was quick and dirty and perfect.

He sucked on her neck, teeth and lips and tongue, while one hand went south and the other north. One hand cupped around her breast, kneading firmly, while the other slid beneath the top of her skirt and sunk down, fingers rubbing and tapping at her clit.

Darcy let out a strangled noise and slapped her hand down onto her desk before reaching it back and tangling her fingers in his hair, gripping it tight. “Steve,” she choked out.

“Almost there. You’re almost...” He let out a quick breath, gritted his teeth, and pinched her clit. Her hips arched back and she dropped down to one elbow. His hand broke away from her breast and rubbed soothing over her upper chest, fingers spread out. “You’re so close, Darcy. Come on.”

And she was. Her toes curled in her boots and her teeth scraped over her lip as she clenched around him, rocking her hips in jagged circles. “Please. _Please_.” She dragged her fingers down his neck, her nails scraping at his skin.

He answered her desperation, his hips moving even faster, adopting a pace that was just a blur from her position. This time when she came, she wasn’t nearly as quiet, swearing loudly, as she pressed up against him and held on tight to his neck, every muscle in her body tightening almost painfully before releasing in a flood of pleasure. “Yes, yes, fuck, yes,” she muttered.

He was right behind her, his breath stuttering and her name a litany made sweet on his lips.

When it was over, he was left holding her upright, his face buried against her neck, his breath skittering over her skin and his shirt rough against her back. She wondered if he could feel her heart pounding under his hand and focused on slowing it down, her breathing still labored and her eyes closed.

She was still shaking when she suddenly heard Jane’s voice reaching through her foggy hearing.

“Darcy? Are you in your office?”

“Shit.” Darcy moved forward and then stopped. She had the desk in front of her and Steve behind, and inside, her. She reached back, pushing at his hips, and he listened. It took some readjusting, quickly, but he was out of her, disposing the condom in the garbage can and doing up his jeans while she yanked her underwear up her legs, shoved her skirt and shirt down and crossed her arms under her chest to hide the fact that her bra was not currently done up.

Walking forward, she shoved the door open and left her office to meet Jane. “Hey! You called?”

Jane stared at her a long moment, her eyes narrowed. “Uh, yeah, I thought I’d come down and see if you needed any help with the paperwork. I know my writing’s kind of hard to read and it’s getting late, so...”

“Um, no, actually, I think I’m done for the night. I was just going to pack up and head home.”

“Oh, okay. Well, if you’re hungry, I haven’t eaten yet and I was thinking of ordering in Chinese.”

“You read my mind... Uh, I’m just going to grab my bag and I’ll meet you in your apartment in five?”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

As Jane walked out, Darcy crossed her eyes and shook her head. Now that she was thinking a little more clearly, she was realizing how completely _stupid_ she’d just been. Holy fuck, if there was an award for how to ruin a perfectly good friendship, it would go to her.

Turning on her heel, she lifted her chin up high and walked back into her office. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she was reaching up behind her to do up her bra, and then she was digging behind her desk for her bag and grabbing her jacket.

“Darcy,” Steve started.

“No.” She shook her head. “Look, it’s late and Jane’s waiting. So, we’ll talk later, all right?” She didn’t look at him, pulling her jacket on and quickly moving to the door. She only paused once to say, “I meant what I said before. You should take some time off, look after yourself,” and then she was gone, effectively running away from a situation she really should have avoided to begin with.

And now it was eight days later and she’d managed to avoid Steve, mostly through the help of Jarvis warning her whenever he was either looking for her or close to where she was at the time. If anybody found it weird that she occasionally ran out of rooms or ducked into places she should not be, nobody said anything. Sure, she got a few looks, but she could handle the confusion of a few strangers. What she couldn’t handle was having one of her closest friends, and a guy she had feelings for, tell her sleeping with her was a mistake. Obviously, she would eventually have to bite the bullet. She just didn’t feel like biting that particular bullet for as long as humanly possible.

Her plan totally would have worked too, if she’d slept with anyone other than Steve Rogers.

She was in the middle of collating data for Jane when her office door opened and closed abruptly and without warning. She looked up, expecting Jane with her ‘breakthrough’ face on, instead she found Steve with his ‘disappointed in you’ face.

She tried for dismissive. “If this is you attempting an afternoon delight, I don’t have the time. Jane needed this collated yesterday, so...”

“You’re avoiding me.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You hid in the men’s bathroom yesterday when you saw me coming down the hall.”

“Maybe I just really had to pee and am a strong believer in co-ed bathrooms,” she replied, staring at the papers in front of her.

“ _Darcy_ ,” he sighed.

“Look, what do you want me to say? I’m not good with awkward conversations. Generally, I try to avoid them.” She looked up at him, brows hiked. “We can forget it ever happened, all right? It was a momentary lapse in judgment, you’ve been stressed out over Bucky, you needed comfort, I was there, it happened.”

Steve frowned. “Is that what you think it was?”

“That _was_ what it was.”

He shook his head and stepped further into her office, purposely taking a seat so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck to see him. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I _have_ been stressed and I’m not going to say that what we did didn’t help, because I... I wanted it and it had been building up for a long time and it felt _good_ to finally have something in my life _progress_. Because I’ve felt like I was just stuck in the same place, doing the same things, for too long. It’s just one long cycle of fighting and it never ends. And maybe I could be okay with that if there was something to look forward to at the end of the day, but until recently, I was struggling.

“Before DC, I wasn’t sure what I was doing or what I wanted. And then I saw Bucky again and it felt like maybe I could still have some part of my old life back. If I could just get him to come with me, to remember me, then maybe this wouldn’t be so hard. And then I met you and... and that was one more thing I had going for me. Except finding Bucky had to be my priority, and I needed you. I need your friendship in my life. You just... You balance me out and I know I can talk to you. And yes, I can talk to Sam too, and he’s good at pulling me back from the edge. But it’s different. Sometimes I just... I want it to be you.

“So I was going to wait. I was going to find Bucky and fix things with him and then I was going to ask you out for coffee or the movies or just _anything_. Just give us a chance to see where it could go. But then you were there that night and you were telling me to take a vacation and find a girl and it just... it boiled over. I... I reached for you and it was like I didn’t know how to let you go and then things just built up and it was all happening so quickly. And I understand how it looked after everything you said, but damn it, Darcy, I would never use you like that. I wouldn’t... I... I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I met you.”

There was a long pause then, as his words just kind of floated there, heavy and thick and a bit of a mindfuck considering how she’d perceived the situation. And then, after clearing her throat, she said, “You still haven’t.”

“What?”

“Kissed me. You still haven’t kissed me.”

His brow furrowed. “I remember kissing you a lot.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, then your aim sucks, because you never got your mouth anywhere near mine.”

His lips twitched up then. “Is that an invitation?”

“It’s a fact.” She sighed, leaning forward. “Look, it’s not that I thought you were _using_ me, exactly. I was a more than willing participant. But it doesn’t leave a lot of room for speculation when you get bent over a desk and fucked after having a conversation about needing to find a way to de-stress.”

He winced, ducking his eyes. “So my timing was terrible and the location could have been better... And I could have been more explicit about what I wanted.”

“It’s not all on you,” she admitted. “I could’ve said something while it was happening, or after, instead of running away as soon as Jane gave me an out.”

“Or hiding in random offices every time you saw me coming.”

“Or that.”

He smiled lightly, his eyes falling to the desk. Shifting in his seat, he looked back at her. “Did you want... I mean, if I’d asked you out before... everything. Would you have said yes?”

She stared at him a long moment. “Are you sure this is what you want to do...? Because you _just_ said you needed my friendship and Bucky hasn’t been found and it sounds like things just kind of happened, and not so much that you _wanted_ them to happen. So, I mean, I don’t want to be picky, but is this really a door you want to open?”

He’d stood from his chair while she was talking, circling her desk and taking a seat on it, just in front of her. He was watching her face as she talked, a faint smile turning up his lips, and then he leaned down, his hands on the arms of her chair, and he paused, his mouth just a breath away from hers. She stared up at him, their eyes meeting across the divide.

“I want you. I want to kiss you, and take you out for coffee, and have movie marathons until dawn. I want to dance with you to every playlist in your iPod, _twice_ , and I want to make love to you on a bed where I can see you face when you fall apart. I don’t want to wait, even if I’m sorry that I rushed in, head first, because you deserve better than that and I want to give you better than that. So if you’ll let me, if you want this too...”

She kissed him.

Slanting her mouth over his, she stroked her hand over his cheek before curling it behind his neck and holding him close. He tasted like coffee and the faint, leftover flavor of his mint toothpaste. His lips were firm, folding around her top lip and tugging lightly, his tongue flicking inside her mouth. His hand squeezed her shoulder before sliding up and into her hair, cradling her head as he kissed her deeply, leaving her breathless when he moved away from her lips to kiss down her chin and along her neck, mouthing his way up to her ear, where his teeth nipped lightly. He followed the same path back to her mouth and slid his hand out, thumb stroking over the arch of her cheek delicately.

He stared down at her, searching her eyes, and smiled. “So that’s a yes then?”

“To what?”

“Dating. Being together. Everything,” he said, nodding.

“Does everything occasionally involve fucking on this desk, because, without the miscommunication, I think it’s a solid idea.”

He laughed, kissing her against quickly. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“Okay, then I’m sold.”

He smiled. “That’s all it took?”

“Hey, there was eight days of awkward avoidance. I think we’ve paid our dues. From here on out, we talk to each other. Especially about important relationship-related things.”

“Deal.”

“Good. Now...” She nuzzled his nose with hers. “Let’s talk about this first date thing...”

 


	20. high school au / crush

If he had to guess, he would say a good quarter of his notebook were sketches of her, and that wasn’t including some of his old notebooks, just his current one. Some were only half-finished, others hadn’t even gotten that far. Some were rough while others he’d taken an infinite amount of time to really get the details right. Bucky told him that eventually it would be less sweet and more creepy, and he got that, really he did. It was just... He saw her and his fingers twitched. It didn’t matter how many times he tried to draw her, how many angles he tried, how the lighting was or what she was doing, it never quite felt like he captured her.

 

He’d known her since sixth grade, when she’d moved to New York with her family. She didn’t live too far away from him, in one of the nicer townhouses a few blocks over from the tiny apartment he and his mother shared. He’d ridden by it on his bike so many times that he’d long memorized the details of the building, the little shelf of flowers that sat out front that her dad took care of, watering them at the same time every day. She had a brother two years her junior that spent a lot of his time perfecting tricks on his skateboard out front in the street. He’d never seen her mother, but she seemed close to her dad.

 

She read a lot, too. At school, she would sit under the same tree, legs folded under her, plug in her head phones and listen to her iPod as she read book after book. She’d sit on the stoop outside her house and do the same there. She never looked up when he rode by on his bike and he’d nearly run into people, a light pole and cars on various occasions all thanks to looking at her instead of what was in front of him.

 

Her name was Darcy; he still remembered the awkward wave she gave when she’d been introduced to the class, a half-smile tilting her lips and bright blue eyes scanning the room before darting over to the teacher, hoping she could take her seat and blend in. She was wearing a band t-shirt; someone he’d never heard before. He bought all of their CD’s and listened to them until he had every lyric memorized. He figured it gave them common ground for the day he inevitably talked to her.

 

Four and a half years later and he’d never quite gotten to that point. It wasn’t that he didn’t have guts. He did. For everything that wasn’t about girls. Or, maybe Darcy specifically. But that had more to do with the fact that he hadn’t liked anyone since Darcy walked into his classroom and sent that awkward smile in his direction. Bucky called him a sap. He teased Steve that he should either get the courage to talk to her or move on already.

 

And he tried. There were a few times that he’d said hi or complimented her on a project she was doing for one of the classes they shared or even commented on her book choice that week. But then something or someone would intervene and before things could progress past that initial awkwardness, she would be pulled away or the bell would ring for class or Bucky would drag him off for some important reason or another.

 

Sometimes he wondered if she didn’t look at him because he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy most girls went for. He wasn’t tall or athletic like Bucky. He was skinny and just a little taller than Darcy. He also got into trouble a lot more than most guys, but that was mostly in defense of other people. He didn’t like bullies and, at their school, there was an abundance of them, always picking on someone smaller or quieter than them. Bullies expected fear and compliance and Steve offered neither of those. For the most part, he didn’t get picked on himself, but he was pretty sure that had more to do with the fact that he was best friends with the star quarterback than it did because he was any kind of real threat himself. That didn’t stop him from taking a swing at anybody he thought deserved it, though. Even if it ended up hurting him more than them.

 

Anyway, he wasn’t sure what Darcy’s type was. She’d never really dated. Her best friend was Jane Foster, who spent most of her time in the science labs, and she occasionally partnered up with Natasha Romanoff or Sharon Carter in classes, but, for the most part, she was kind of a loner, preferring her solitude, music and a good book. He could appreciate that.

 

His latest drawing of her was done in class. She was bent over her notebook, her hair spilling down her back and over her shoulder. She kept reaching up to tuck it behind her ear but it kept getting loose and tumbling down against her cheek. Her mouth was turned up faintly at the corner and her glasses were slipping down the slope of her nose. He was paying close attention to the curve of her lips, trying to sketch it just right, when she suddenly turned her eyes and looked right at him.

 

He looked away immediately, dropping his gaze to his book for three painfully long seconds, and then when he raised them again, he looked over to see she was still looking at him. Offering an awkward smile, he hesitantly lifted his hand to wave at her.

 

Her smile grew before she waved her pencil in a mock wave of her own and then her gaze fell back to her book.

 

He swallowed tightly and looked back at his drawing, unable to stop smiling.

 

He would’ve been content with that. Could’ve lived off that smile for weeks, but, thankfully, he didn’t have to.

 

It was later that same day when he stumbled on Hodge shoving a smaller boy against a bank of lockers, slapping the books out of his hand and sneering down at him.

 

Steve shoved the sleeves of his shirt up his arms and shook his head. Hodge had been a bully for as long as Steve could remember. In fact, he’d been bullied by him all through elementary school until Bucky stepped in and broke his nose. Then he got wise and decided Steve wasn’t worth the trouble. While Steve appreciated Bucky stepping in, he still wished he’d been able to get Hodge off his back on his own. Which was probably why he always took so much offense to seeing him pick on other people.

 

“Leave him alone,” Steve sighed, stepping in between them. “He’s half your size and I’m betting he didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

“Nobody asked you, Rogers. Why don’t you run back to Barnes?”

 

“I’m not gonna let you beat up this kid.”

 

Hodge snorted. “Yeah? And what’re you gonna do about it, huh? You two are about the same size, right? Maybe the both of you against me makes it fair.” He grinned, reaching forward to shove at Steve’s chest.

 

Steve stumbled back, his shoulders hitting the lockers painfully. “He’s not going to fight you because you’ll only make it worse for him later. Just leave him alone. Walk away.”

 

“That sounds a lot like an order... You gonna back that up with anything.”

 

Steve’s jaw ticked with irritation. “If I have to.”

 

“No Barnes around to save you this time, Rogers. You sure you want to do this?”

 

Balling his hands up in fists, he raised his chin. “I got a few good hits in when I was a kid. I don’t mind throwing a few more now.”

 

Of course, when he was a kid, so too was Hodge, and he’d only grown bigger. The first punch nearly knocked Steve off his feet. He could already feel the blood dribbling from his lip and down his chin. He licked it up, turned, and swung. He caught Hodge in the chin, but that only seemed to piss him off worse. The second punch was to his stomach, and he swore every single one of his organs wore an imprint of Hodge’s knuckles. The third mirrored the second, followed by a fourth on his chin. His knees were buckling on him, but he wouldn’t let them give, throwing his own punches right back, and, unfortunately, doing very little damage.

 

“ _Hey!_ ”

 

They both looked when the angry shout interrupted them, and found none other than a pissed off Darcy Lewis staring back at them, her hands on her hips.

 

“Yeah?” Hodge sneered.

 

Darcy reached over and grabbed the shoulder of a small boy next to her and brought him forward. “Are you the asshole picking on my brother?”

 

Hodge looked at the boy and then back to Darcy. “So what if I am?”

 

She walked forward then, releasing her brother, who awkwardly rubbed his shoulder and gave Steve a half-smile as he moved over to help him stand upright. “Thanks for stepping in,” he said quietly.

 

Steve stared at him a long moment, realizing suddenly that he was the boy he’d intervened for against Hodge. He hadn’t gotten a good look at him before, but it was clear that this was the same boy he saw skateboarding every day after school.

 

“So what, you just go around picking on anybody smaller than you, that it?” Darcy peered up at Hodge, her eyebrow raised. “You get your kicks out of screwing around with people half your size, ‘cause, _what_ , you’re making up for something or daddy didn’t hug you enough?”

 

Hodge bristled, his lip curling with a sneer.

 

Steve stood abruptly, worry crawling down his back. He wouldn’t put it past Hodge to take a swing at a girl, especially one who was tearing him down like Darcy was.

 

“Let me make something very clear...” she said coldly, “You ever touch my brother again and I will force feed you your own balls.”

 

“You wanted to get your hand down my pants, Lewis, all you had to do was ask.”

 

Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t have the time, interest, or _tweezers_ to deal with that, asshole. So I’ll make it very easy for your already bruised ego. You don’t touch my brother, I won’t taser your brains out.” As if to prove her point, she produced a taser from her bag, of which Steve was almost completely sure was illegal, especially on school property.

 

Hodge snorted. “You wouldn’t.”

 

Darcy smirked then, looking positively eager. “ _Try me._ ”

 

Hodge, seeming to be smarter than he looked, clued in that yeah, she probably would. “Whatever, not even worth my time,” he muttered, before stalking off down the hallway.

 

All was quiet then, as Darcy put her taser back in her back and turned toward the two boys. She looked between them and shook her head. “Mattie, shouldn’t you be in English?”

 

Nodding sheepishly, he shrugged at Steve and then walked off down the hall, his bag hitched high on his shoulder.

 

Wiping at the blood on his chin, Steve glanced at her and then away. “I, uh, had it handled with Hodge.”

 

“Yeah,” she snorted. “If you call getting your ass kicked ‘handled.’”

 

He frowned, shuffling his feet.

 

“You should see the nurse about your lip... Looks pretty bad.”

 

Steve shook his head. “Just cut it on my teeth. It’ll stop bleeding soon.”

 

She hummed and then let out a long sigh before suddenly reaching over, grabbing his wrist, and dragging him along behind her. She walked right into the girl’s bathroom and brought him with her.

 

“I... I shouldn’t be in here,” he muttered, his eyes darting around.

 

“You shouldn’t have a fat lip either, but them’s the breaks...” Releasing him, she walked to the sink, grabbing out some paper towel from a dispenser and soaking it. “Come here,” she said, nodding her head at him.

 

He eyed her for a long moment, but finally crossed the space between them and tilted his chin down. She caught it between her fingers and wiped it clean, scrubbing in a few places where the blood had a chance to dry. She turned the paper towel over a few times and carefully dabbed his lip clean. He watched her as she worked, her fingers soft, painted in red and blue stripes today, with little white stars on her thumbs.

 

“Feeling patriotic?” he wondered, watching her hands.

 

She glanced down at her fingers and then shrugged. “Never really noticed the resemblance ‘til you said something.”

 

He hummed. “They were green before. Army green.”

 

Her mouth turned up. “Were they?”

 

He felt a flush creep up his neck and cleared his throat.

 

She stared at him a moment. “Thanks for what you did, standing up for my brother. Not a lot of people would do that.”

 

He shrugged. “I don’t like bullies.”

 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed...” At his curious expression, she explained, “Seems like every other week I’m hearing how little Steve Rogers took on somebody else...”

 

He scowled. “I’m not _that_ little.”

 

“Not everywhere.”

 

He blinked at her.

 

Darcy laughed. “I didn’t mean it like _that_. I meant...” She blushed, shaking her head. She was pretty when she blushed. “I meant your heart, or whatever. You... You’re a good person. That’s not really measured in muscle mass, you know?”

 

He smiled. “Yeah. I know.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Good.”

 

“For the record though, I don’t have a small, uh...” He waved a hand downward awkwardly.

 

Darcy bit her lip. “For the record or just for me?”

 

Steve swallowed tightly. “Is that an option?”

 

“I don’t know. You’ve been drawing for me for weeks, but you never seem to ask me out.”

 

His eyes widened. “You... You knew?”

 

“I also know you ride your bike by my house. My neighbor keeps complaining you nearly ran her over and now she tells me every time she sees you. If you went by her accounts, you’re a menace to the neighborhood that likes to mow down pedestrians for shits and giggles. It’s actually kind of funny to hear her rant.”

 

Steve groaned, his eyes falling closed. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

 

“And driving by my house every other day is... _what_? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure, by some standards, it’d be considered stalking.”

 

He winced. “That’s not... I didn’t mean to...” He sighed. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop. I didn’t mean to be a creep. I just... I don’t know. I was trying to figure out a way to say hi, but every time I tried to, something would happen or I always thought I sounded dumb.”

 

“So you thought getting into a fight with Hodge over my brother’s honor was a better way to go?”

 

“No! I... I didn’t know it was your brother. I mean, after, when I really looked at him I did. But when it was happening, I didn’t. I just... I don’t like how Hodge treats people. It doesn’t matter who it is, they don’t deserve that.”

 

She stared at him, long and hard, then, and slowly nodded. “I can get behind that.” She readjusted her bag on her shoulder. “So, what are you doing Friday?”

 

“I... What?”

 

She grinned. “Friday. The school dance? Do you have a date?”

 

He shook his head slowly. “No. Uh, no, I don’t.”

 

She shrugged then. “Now you do.”

 

He blinked once, twice, and then started to grin. “I... I can’t really dance.”

 

“So I’ll teach you.”

 

“All right. Um, that’d be great.”

 

“Cool.” She reached up then, rubbing her thumb under his split lip. “What are the odds it’ll hurt if I kiss you?”

 

“Not so much that I’d tell you not to,” he blurted.

 

She chuckled under her breath and then leaned over, looking up at him when she was so close he could feel her breath on his mouth. He swallowed tightly and worried, briefly, that his breath might stink. But Darcy didn’t say anything; instead, she pressed her lips to his, lingering for a nice, long moment, and then pulled back. “Maybe I’ll teach you how to kiss too,” she teased before turning on her heel and marching toward the door.

 

Steve turned to watch her go, his brows hiked high.

 

As she pulled the door open, she looked back and said, “Hey, bring your sketchbook on Friday... When we’re not dancing, you can show me a few of your drawings.”

 

He nodded jerkily, raising his hand to wave as she finally stepped out and walked away.

 

Standing alone in the girls’ bathroom, Steve grinned goofily to himself.

 

It might’ve taken four and a half years, but it was totally worth the wait.

 


	21. Surprised kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **[18.](http://sarcasticfina.tumblr.com/post/124215358112)** Surprised kiss - [souralpha](http://thesouralpha.tumblr.com/)

“This would be a great time to break out some heroics,” Darcy informed him, chewing her lip as she listened to the noise outside the room, increasing gradually as the enemy got closer. Which enemy, she had no idea. The Avengers had so many at this point that Darcy had just learned to categorize everyone as friend or foe, and considering the bullet wounds on Captain America’s (“Just Steve is fine, please”) patriotic abdomen, shoulder, and thigh, these people were clearly foes.

They’d moved two floors up from the original chaos, but Darcy was pretty sure someone had caught on to where they were hiding. The tower was currently without power, leaving them fewer escape routes as certain floors went into lock mode and the elevator wasn’t budging. The surprise attack had come at night which meant that most of the businesses in the lower floors were, thankfully, empty. Unfortunately, that also meant fewer people to raise an alarm on what was happening, and since the rest of the team was away on various missions, visiting Asgard, and/or on vacation (great time to buy your own island, Tony, really,  _thanks_ ), that left even fewer options for rescue. 

Panting a little, Steve checked his weapons and bullet supply. Darcy had to squint to see much of anything in the dim emergency lighting. (She’d be taking that up with Tony when he got back too; that had to be some kind of hazard,  _seriously_ ) Steve had clearly had a few guns hidden on his person for just this kind of occasion. Under different circumstances she might’ve asked where and suggested a preview later, but she was a little worried she might soon have matching bullet wounds, and she didn’t think they were at that stage yet in their non-existent relationship. 

“Look, I’m working on a plan to get us out of here, but with no way to contact the others, we’re limited on exit options…” he told her, grimacing as he pressed down on the wound in his leg. 

Darcy nodded at him vaguely, her ear turned to the door; she could hear someone approaching from down the hall. Her French was a little rusty (thanks college language credit), but she was pretty sure they were about to be found. 

Steve was busy muttering to himself about air vents and how to get to another floor while Darcy grabbed an ( _illegal_ ) tazer from her purse and, just to be sure, scooped one of Steve’s guns from the floor. 

“–I know I heard Barton say something about a safety issue with one of he vents connecting to his floor from this one, but I can’t remember if it was this office or the next one and–”

“That’s great,” she interrupted. “Listen, if I die in a blaze of glory, I want to be put on one of those little ships that they shoot flaming arrows at as it’s sent off to sea or whatever, like Viking style. I’ve already talked it over with Thor, and he’s cool with it, because we’re Shield Siblings or whatever. Remember that, because my mom wants to do the creepy ashes on the mantle thing, and that freaks me out. Especially since I’d be sharing space with Uncle Larry and my mom’s childhood cat, Mister Bugsy. I have more dignity than that!”

With a sigh, clearly thinking she was panicking, Steve shook his head. “Darcy, you’re not going to die. Just stay calm and I promise I will get you out of–”

She grabbed him by the collar and yanked him forward, stealing a kiss off his adorably surprised mug. Had she more time, she would’ve lingered - he had soft lips and the bluest eyes - but alas, duty called. So she shoved him back, reached for the door handle and said, “If anyone asks, I said something really witty before I did this, capiche?” 

And then she was out the door, tazer and gun at the ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like darcy would be all about the viking funeral, like she’d definitely have a sit down with thor. and he’d be so serious about following her wishes too. no shelf of sorrow for darcy; she’d be sent off in flames. not that she actually dies in this. she totally tazes the bad dudes and her and steve escape through the vents and make a battle plan wherein steve is mostly just the strategist because injuries, while darcy goes full bamf with jerry-rigged traps and her trusty taser.


	22. "I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “[I can’t believe I’m sitting in space jail with you of all people](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/114793840553).”

For the record, Darcy wasn’t actually surprised about her current circumstances. She was mostly surprised by who was joining her. Although, that was kind of her fault. Though he did have a habit of trying to defend her, even when she didn’t deem it necessary, so she really shouldn’t be all that surprised, considering. 

Sitting on the floor, knees pulled up near his chest, was Steve Rogers, one of his hands buried in his hair as he sighed, heavily, for like the ten-thousandth time. She almost felt sorry for him.  _Almost_.

“Steve, buddy, I’m not saying you should be happy about what happened, but you sighing every thirty seconds is  _not_  going to change things…” 

Steve frowned over at her. “I can’t believe I’m sitting in ‘space’ jail… with  _you_ , of all people.”

“Really?” Her face scrunched up. “Because I’ve been expecting to wind up here basically since the day Thor landed…”

He rolled his eyes. “You know, when I agreed to visit Asgard with you, I didn’t think you’d get us arrested.”

“Then you clearly weren’t listening when Coulson tried to debrief you,” she snorted. “Debrief. Yeah, I bet he’d like to.” 

Steve blinked at her. “ _Darcy_ …” 

She grinned at him, and then pushed off her seat to crawl across the floor, taking a seat beside him. “Listen, you can stop worrying. Thor’s my buddy. My brother from another mother. My get-out-of- _literal_ -jail free card… Seriously. I once had him use his hammer to destroy the wall in a Mexican prison and get me out before they could actually process me. It was awesome. I mean… don’t tell anybody about it, I’m pretty sure they still have a warrant out for me, or someone who  _looks_ like me, since I was going by a different name, just in case.. But, whatever. The  _point_ is, Thor will smooth things over with his dad, or whoever that creepy dude with the gold eye-patch thing was, and then we’ll be let free to roam around Asgard again. And this time, I promise I won’t make any pirate jokes… At least not to anybody with the ability to put me in a prison cell for any extended period of time.” 

Steve dropped his head back, shook it, and then looked over at her. “I’m starting to get why Coulson said I was the only who would take the job… And why you needed a guard on you at all times.” 

“Okay, personally, I think he was overreacting a little. I mean, who knew the All Father couldn’t take a joke…? And really, I had a lot of material to work with, starting with the crazy trickster son who totally had kids with a horse, so he should be happy I limited myself to the eye patch. Nicky-Nicky-Nine-Doors doesn’t mind when I ask him if he has a laser eye under there. I’m pretty sure he requisitioned one from Tony.” 

“He’s asked you to stop calling him that… multiple times.” 

“He’s asked me to stop doing a lot of things.” 

Steve frowned. “I get the feeling that attitude is exactly why we’re in  _prison_ …”

“Yes, but it’s a  _nice_  prison,” she pointed out. “Don’t I get a  _little_ credit for that?” 

Steve sighed; the long, suffering sound Darcy was so very used to. 

“Look, if it makes you feel better, I promise to be on the best of behaviour after we get out… For  _at least_ forty-eight hours.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “That’s probably the best offer you will ever get from me.” 

Taking a moment to consider it, he finally held out a hand and said, “Deal.”

Grinning, Darcy shook it.

Behind them, the door opened and Thor stepped inside in all of his handsome, regal glory. “Lady Darcy, Steven, I’ve come to release you from the ‘pokey.’”

Steve blinked and then looked back at her, an eyebrow raised. 

Darcy smirked proudly. “I taught him that when he got me out of a jail in Albuquerque.”

Frowning, he wondered, “How many prisons have you been in?”

Darcy grinned, taking Thor’s hand and letting him pull her to her feet. She dusted herself off as she said, “That’s a story for another time, Steve-o. Now let’s get outta here. Sif promised to show me how to swing a sword and destroy my enemies!” She marched toward the open door with purpose.

“Oh,  _fuck_ ,” Steve muttered, hurrying to get up off the floor and chase after her.

“ _Language!_ ” she teased. 

With a frustrated sigh, he called after her,“Listen, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Darce, did you hear what I said…?  _Darcy_ …”

Grinning, Thor followed after them, chuckling to himself. It would be a most eventful visit, to be sure.


	23. “I understand the whole sleep-talking thing, but what I don’t understand is the princess/dragon dream and why I’m in it...?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “[I understand the whole sleep-talking thing, but what I don’t understand is the princess/dragon dream and why I’m in it...?](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/114793840553)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [[darcy](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=173387858)]

Steve startles awake. Not an uncommon thing, except that this time it wasn’t due to a nightmare. He was actually having a pretty good mid-afternoon nap, which was why he was a little surprised about the sudden surge back into wakefulness. And then he spots Darcy, casually sitting on the coffee table, her legs crossed under her and a cup of tea in her lap as she watches him. Her hair is tied in a slightly lopsided knot atop her head. Unabashed at having been caught watching him sleep, she merely raises a hand in a wave and then raises her cup to blow on the top. 

“Good sleep?” she asks.

He shifts, stretching his legs out and blinking a few times as he tries to shake off the lingering vestiges of drowsiness. There’s a blanket covering him; it’s purple with tassels. He remembers Darcy knitting it during a particularly harrowing week for him and the team. She’d watched it unfold on screen and, apparently, used knitting as a coping mechanism. The blanket was soft and warm, his hand absently pets over the fabric until a noise from his left draws his attention back to her. 

She’s smiling, but she covers it with her mug. 

Clearing his throat, he gives his head a shake. “Uh, yeah, wasn’t bad.” He drags a hand down his face and drops his head back to a pillow behind him. 

She hums, eyeing him curiously. 

Steve glances around, wondering if any of the others are lingering nearby. He’d fallen asleep in the common room after spending much of his morning sketching in a notepad that was discarded on the table just to the right of Darcy’s hip. She’s barefoot, he notices; her toes are pained a bright and shimmery red and she has a silver ring on the third toe of left foot. The room is empty except for them, nothing but the faint noise of air conditioning and a distant ticking clock. 

Taking a deep breath, Darcy launches into a story. “So, I had this friend when I was like eight. We lived next door to each other and her mom worked nights, so she’d sleep over a lot ‘cause my mom never charged and babysitter’s cost out the ass when you’ve got them on regular rotation. Anyway, she was cool, her name’s Trish. We don’t talk much anymore, but every once in a while I’ll check in on Facebook and she’s pretty happy. When we were kids though, I remember I’d always wait for her to fall asleep first, because she had this funny habit of talking in her sleep. She used to say the  _craziest_ things, and I’d have to bury my face in my pillow so my mom didn’t hear me giggling. I thought she was faking at first, you know, trying to be funny or weird or something, but it was totally real. Just one of those things you can’t really control. My mom said my dad did it too, whenever he was stressed, he’d just start making lists out loud of all the things he needed to get done.” She shrugs, sipping at her tea.

Steve stares at her a long moment, and then his brows arch abruptly. He remembers, suddenly, that Bucky used to tease him about the same thing, always muttering in his sleep while he slept on the couch cushions on the floor. The Commando’s too, they used to tease him that they’d better not let him get caught by enemy forces or he’d spill all their battle plans as soon as he fell asleep. It used to worry him, keep him from sleeping some nights, until Bucky told him he actually spent more time mumbling about Peggy than he ever did about war. 

As if Darcy can see that Steve has suddenly come to realize what happened, she grins and lowers her mug to her lap once more. “So, I understand the whole sleep-talking thing, but what I don’t understand is the princess/dragon dream and why I’m in it…?”

Steve can feel the flush start at his ears and then spread from there, crawling across his face and down his neck. He coughs to clear his throat and looks away. “ _Uh_ …”

“Don’t get me wrong, dragons are always cool. I’m curious though, are you the dragon keeping me safe, or are you the prince trying to ‘save’ me?” Her eyes squint thoughtfully. “I’d like to think me and the dragon would be friends. Who wouldn’t want a giant, fire breathing dragon to be besties with? And I’m all about animal rights, so I hope you’re not slaying this dragon in your dream. That’d be pretty shitty. I mean, they spent a good portion of their life keeping me safe. Clearly they must’ve fed me if I’m still alive, so they probably have some level of affection for me. Otherwise, why even do it? It’s not like it’s an awesome gig, getting attacked by would-be prince’s all the time, right? So they must be looking out for these girls, which deserves kudos, not swords.” She shrugs. “Just makes sense.”

Steve blinks at her, and then bites his lips as he starts to smile. “I didn’t slay any dragons, I promise.”

Darcy grins. “No dragons were harmed in the making of this rescue mission, huh?” 

He laughs under his breath, and pushes himself up so he’s sitting properly, right in front of her. The mid-afternoon sun is bright at her back, it filters through a few stray curls of her hair, hanging against her cheeks. Darcy always looks pretty, but she’s especially so in that moment. 

Steve ducks his head and shakes it. “I think I can say with all authority that all dragons are safe and accounted for.” 

She hums, eyeing him. “So, you’ve got me curious. What all happened in this dream then?” 

He stares back at her, and then takes a chance and says, “Why don’t we talk about it over dinner? I know a place, not too far from here. We could walk.” He nods. “ _Great_ milkshakes.” 

Darcy shrugs. "Well, who can say no to a milkshake…” 

He tries, and fails, to hide a grin. “Great, uh, it’s a date.” 

Darcy smiles back. “Good.” She hops off the table then, and walks toward the sink with her mug. “Well, this princess needs to put on something a little more date appropriate before we go. Meet you downstairs in ten?” 

“ _Sure!_  Yes. I– I’ll see you there.” 

She winks at him before she goes, and he laughs under his breath, slumping back against the couch a moment. He folds the purple blanket up neatly and thinks,  _Not a bad way to wake up_.


	24. "Oh my God. Can you hear me?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “[Oh my God. Can you hear me?](http://amusewithaview.tumblr.com/post/127443113385/post-trauma-sentence-meme-angst)”

“Oh my God. Can you hear me?”

Steve groaned in response. The sound of his pounding head was beginning to recede, but the panicked feeling of the floor sliding out from under him was still making his heart race. He felt hands fluttering over him, and then fanning at his face, like in those pictures with the swooning southern belles.

“I’m  _so_ sorry. I thought you were  _Clint_.”

“And that makes it  _better?”_  he huffed out, a hand pressed to his forehead. The pain was nearly gone now; the serum kicking in. It wasn’t a hard knock to the head, just an abrupt and unexpected one. 

“Well. I mean,  _he_ deserved it. You were just an innocent bystander.”

Steve finally opened his eyes, to see a pretty brunette leaning over him, blue eyes concerned, her eyebrow raised and her hand still flapping at his face. He blinked at her. 

“You’re okay, right? I think Coulson would disappear me if I maimed his favorite hero.” She paused, and then looked away. “Actually, maybe we shouldn’t tell him about this…“

He cleared his throat. “You work for Coulson?”  

She snorted. “He wishes. I’m a lab assistant, or, as Tony prefers, lab  _monkey_. But then, I don’t take a lot of what Tony says seriously, especially when he forgoes pants on the last leg of a science bender.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I don’t work for the Director, but we have a nice relationship where he drops by the labs, asks me if I’m behaving, and I refuse to speak to him through anything but a whiteboard until he returns my iPod to me. He pretends he doesn’t mind the silent treatment, but who wouldn’t miss the sound of my voice?” 

Steve’s mouth was slowly upturning into a smile. “I’m not sure which part of that I should be focusing on.”

“Either that’s the concussion or my brilliant distraction techniques at work.” 

“I don’t have a concussion,” he assured. “And you can stop fanning me now.” 

Her eyes narrowed, like she didn’t quite believe him. 

“Seriously. It’s not the first time I’ve taken a hit, and it won’t be the last.”

“ _Technically_ , the floor did the hitting. I just… facilitated it, a little bit.” She did drop her hand though. 

“You buttered the floor,” he said dryly. 

“Right.” She nodded. “But it was in anticipation of someone  _else_ …” 

“Can I ask why Barton deserved it?” he wondered.

“Much as I’d like to explain. You could be a spy for his camp, so I really can’t discuss the situation too much.” 

“A  _spy_ ,” he repeated, raising his eyebrows. 

 _“_ Can’t take my chances, even with the bald eagle of truth and justice.” She sat back on her heels. “You need help getting up? Maybe some ice for your head? I’ve gotta clean the butter up. Chances are, he’s already figured out what happened. So I need to plan my next attack.” 

“Hopefully one without other casualties,” he mused. 

“Hopefully,” she said cheerfully, before pushing herself up to stand. She held a hand out for him and, while he hesitated a moment (she was much smaller than him and he wasn’t sure how she’d manage the weight difference), he finally reached out and took her hand, much smaller and softer than his own. She braced her feet and yanked him up, grunting as she did. “There.” She dusted her hand over his shoulder. “Good as new, right?” 

He crossed his arms over his chest and peered down at her; it was a look that had sent more than a few people scurrying. 

She merely grinned. “Look at it this way… Better you than one of the more breakable humans, right?” Tossing a thumb over her shoulder, she said, “Ice pack?” She was already walking toward the kitchen area.

He followed after her, taking a seat on a stool at the counter. She paused at the fridge for an ice pack and then handed it over to him before ducking down to open the cupboard under the sink, searching through the cleaning supplies. 

Steve had just opened his mouth to ask her what her name was when there was a yelp from his left. He turned, just in time to see Barton’s arms windmill before he landed unceremoniously on his ass. 

“ _Darcy!_ ” Barton shouted, slapping a hand down on the floor. 

“Darcy” popped up from the floor and frowned. “Aww, I missed it… JARVIS, tell me you were recording.” 

“ _The whole time, Miss Lewis, as requested_.” 

“You’re a peach.” 

“ _I do try, Miss._ ” 

Grinning, Darcy turned to Steve. “Was it as magical as it sounded?”

He stifled a laugh, ice pack pressed to his head. “It was something.” 

“Awesome. Anyway, it’s been real. But I need to skedaddle before he gets up.” She waved then. “I’ll send DUM-E to clean the floor. Nice meeting you!” She was gone then, rushing out of the room quickly. 

Steve blinked after her, and then looked over at a scowling Clint, stalking his way toward him. 

“Where’d she go?” he growled. 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Should I ask why she’s got it out for you in the first place?” 

Barton frowned, and then looked at the ice pack he held in his hand. He grinned suddenly. “You interested in some payback, Cap?” 

“No. Actually, I was thinking about asking her out…”

Barton laughed then, smirking as he walked out of the room. “Good luck. You’ll need all you can get.” 

Steve wasn’t discouraged though. He tossed the ice pack back in the fridge and then asked JARVIS, “Any idea where I can find Miss Lewis?” 

“ _Miss Lewis is currently evading Agent Barton. She is en route to Doctor Banner’s lab_.” 

“Thanks,” he said, before starting for the exit. He passed DUM-E down the hall, rolling toward the common room, a bucket of soapy water with a floating sponge in its claw. Shaking his head, he smiled to himself and continued walking. Well, he already knew she’d be an interesting dinner partner. Now all he had to do was ask her, and hope she said yes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Clint definitely invaded her inner sanctum in the labs and messed with her filing system just to bug her, which led Darcy to prank him in retaliation, and then it just kept escalating, lol. 
> 
> Darcy would be of the “I almost gave you a concussion, why do you want to date me?” mindset, and would think he was working with Clint for revenge. So she would basically be like, “No date until I win the war, possible-spy-Cap.” So he goes about trying to help her plan pranks to prove he’s not a spy, and to end the war sooner, and they spend a few weeks flirting, all at Clint’s expense, until finally he gives up and Darcy and Steve order in and make out to celebrate their victory.


	25. “Can I kiss you?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can I kiss you?”

“Can I kiss you?” 

Startled, Darcy looked up from the bowl of cereal she was slowing making her way through. It was her favorite late night snack, but it didn’t usually come with a side of beefed up super soldier. “People usually start with ‘hello’ and work their way up to that.” 

Steve winced. “Sorry. That was...  _abrupt_. I didn’t mean... I just... Natasha said something, and I thought...” He blew out an awkward breath and rubbed a hand down the nape of his neck. 

Taking another bite of her progressively soggying Wheaties, she raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to cry foul twice, but bringing up another woman while you’re trying to kiss someone is a pretty big no-no.” 

“I’m screwing this up.” He flushed, shaking his head. “Never mind. Sorry. I... Just pretend I didn’t say anything.” 

He turned to leave, but Darcy rolled her eyes, pushing her bowl of cereal away. “You’ve got me curious. What happened with Tasha?” 

He paused, looked back at her, and, seeming to consider his options, finally sighed in defeat. “When we were on the run...” 

“When you were toppling SHIELD, you mean?” 

“Uh, yeah. We... We picked up a tail and she thought kissing would make for a good cover, that people naturally look away from intimacy in public.” 

“Sure, some do, but voyeurism is definitely a thing, so, plan might have a few holes...” 

“Right.” He rubbed his hands on his pants. “Well, anyway, it worked, but after, when we were on the road, she might’ve said something, and I guess... I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t right.” 

“She say anything specific? Like ‘too wet’ or ‘stop biting,’ anything like that?” 

He made a choking noise and shook his head. “What? No! Just... She suggested I might need practice. I think. It was implied, kind of.” His brow furrowed. 

Humming, she hopped off her stool and tipped her head to peer up at him. “Okay.”

His brows hiked. “Okay?” 

“What? You want a signed permission slip from my mom? Do I have to be a certain height to hop on the Steve Rogers kissing train?” 

“No, I just wasn’t sure you’d...” He cleared his throat, shifting his feet. “I kind of came at this the wrong way. I didn’t mean to ambush you. I just...” 

“Saw me sitting here in my pajamas eating Wheaties and thought,  _wow_ , I really need to kiss that girl with the bed head.” 

He laughed, cracking a smile. “Yes. That’s exactly what happened. You know, I happen to think you make bed head look very fashionable.” He waved a hand to her vaguely. “It’s flattering. For one in the morning...” 

Darcy snorted. “Yeah, I’m the queen of the one am runway... Speaking of, what’re you even doing up this late? I mean, besides searching for unsuspecting interns to kiss.” 

“Oh, well, that was all I had penciled into my schedule, but, honestly, it’s just... hard to sleep sometimes.” 

“Bed too soft?” 

“Uh. Yeah, actually, sometimes.” He nodded slowly. “Other things too. Some nights are better than others. I guess tonight wasn’t one of ‘em.” Seeming to feel awkward with his sincerity, he quickly asked, “And you? What’s keeping you up?” 

Darcy shrugged. “Late night at the lab with Jane, takes a while to come down from. Thought I’d get a snack in before I head to bed.” 

“Right, of course. I didn’t mean to keep you.” 

“You aren’t. I’d let you know if you were.” She looked him over quickly and then said, “If we’re going to do this, we should try it somewhere a little more equalizing, otherwise I’m going to get a crick in my neck. And that won’t up your kissing skills any.” 

Steve still looked surprised. “You really...? Are you sure? Because I don’t want to pressure you. I really didn’t mean to just throw it out there like that. It just kind of... came out.” He rubbed his knuckles across his hip and shook his head. “Can we start over, actually?” 

“Sure.” She motioned a thumb behind her. “Do I need to pour another bowl of cereal, or do you want me to casually walk out and then back in?” 

He laughed, ducking his head as he smiled. With a heavy sigh, he caught her eyes and said, “Are you busy tomorrow night? I know a great diner, makes a good burger. Or there’s an Italian place I’ve been hearing good things about...” 

Darcy smiled. “I like burgers.” 

“Good.  _Great_. Uh... Okay. So... Tomorrow?” 

“It’s a date,” she agreed. And just as he was returning her smile, she leaned up on the tips of her toes and laid a soft kiss on his lips. He leaned into it; surprised, but happily so. He reached for her, hand falling to her hip, and tilted his head, catching her bottom lip between his own and sucking lightly. For such a large man, he was very careful with himself.

She grinned into it, and then popped one last peck to his lips before leaning back. “Pick me up at six,” she told him, before turning on her heel to leave. 

“Okay. Great. Uh, have a good sleep.” 

“You too.” Darcy glanced back over her shoulder, and licked her lips as she caught his eye. Not bad, not bad at all, but practice makes perfect, and she looked for to it. 


	26. the break up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. That’s the problem.”

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. That’s the problem.” 

Steve stands in the doorway of  ~~their~~  his bedroom, watching her pack her things, occasionally swiping at her cheeks to hide the tears. “You know this isn’t what I wanted.”

“Right. America’s ‘Man with a Plan’ never saw it coming.” She closes her eyes, and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. That was catty.” 

“It’s fine. I deserve it.” 

“You don’t.” She closes her suitcase and zips it. “Things happen. Life happens. People break up.” She feigns nonchalance in a shrug. “One more for the history books.” 

“Don’t do that. Act like it didn’t mean anything.” He frowns, his brow furrowed. “It did. It  _does_. I just... I have so much on my plate. I can’t...” 

“You can’t balance it. I know. We’ve had this conversation three times and it always ends with ‘Sorry Darcy, I just don’t think our relationship is a top priority right now.’”

He flinches, drops his guilty gaze to the floor. But he doesn’t fight, and that’s what hurts the most. The man who never stopped fighting, who stood up to every injustice he ever witnessed, couldn’t fight to keep their relationship going. 

She lets out a choked laugh and tips her head back, willing the tears to stop falling. “I should’ve seen this coming. God, I was so stupid. You constantly missed our dates, you never remembered to call, you were still so  _clearly_ stuck on Peggy, but I...” She balls her hands into fists. “I really,  _really_ wanted this to work. I tried so hard to make this work.” 

He doesn’t answer right away, and when he does, his voice is thick, but no less resolute. “I’m sorry.” 

She nods. “Yeah. I know.” She grabs the handle of her bag and drags it off the bed, stepping out of reach when he tries to take it for her. “I’ll text you when I know I’ll be back to get the rest.” 

“You don’t... It’s your place too. You can come by whenever.” 

“No, it’s not. And I won’t.” 

She’s already wondering if she can just get Thor to do it, because coming back, having to face him again, or even worse, having to face an empty apartment, is just too much. She sniffles, wipes a hand under her nose, and starts down the hall. She makes it to the door before he says her name, in that quiet, pleading, apologetic voice of his. And part of her wants to lash out, it wants to hurt him, it wants to make him feel even a fraction of the heartbreak she is. But it’s not going to make her feel better. So she opens the door and she walks away and she doesn’t look back. 

She loves him, god, she loves him so much. But he doesn’t... He couldn’t possibly. Or he’d fight. But she’s not the British SSR Agent he fell for in World War 2 or the best friend that fell from a train and miraculously survived, she’s just the intern that fell for a superhero and was left behind in the fallout. And okay, it hurts. Fuck, it hurts a lot. But she  _will_ fight, for herself and her own happiness, super soldier be damned.


	27. start again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “[Tell me to go and I will, but if you ask me to stay I’ll never leave you again](http://sarcasticfina.tumblr.com/post/128764429917).” ([x](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **head's up** : this is a sequel to the previous chapter, so be sure to read it first!
> 
>  **music** : _[the heart wants what it wants](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij_0p_6qTss)_ \- selena gomez

"You left the window unlocked on the fire escape.”

Darcy doesn’t startle; the voice is familiar enough that all it does is make tension run down her back. She lingers in the doorway, keys tucked in the palm of her hand. The hallway light reaches across the floor and meets the ends of his muddy boots where he’s sitting at the edge of the arm chair. 

Steve’s still in his gear, his helmet is on the floor and his hair is in disarray from running his fingers through it, a tick of his when he’s stressed. She closes the door and flicks the light on to see him better. His face is bruised, there’s dried blood on his chin, and he looks  _tired_. Nothing new there.

“It’s late,” she says, kicking her heels off. “Shouldn’t soldiers, big and small, be tucked into bed?” She walks to the cupboard for a glass and finds a bottle of red wine; she needs to take the edge off if this is going to happen. She raises a glass for him, but he hums negatively, so she puts it back. 

Making her way over to the couch, she pours her wine, then leaves the bottle of the coffee table, takes a seat, and tucks her legs up under her. It’s been six months. Six long months of sweeping up the pieces of her broken heart and putting them back together. She’s watched him run himself ragged in his pursuit of Bucky while simultaneously taking on small factions of HYDRA uprisings here or there. It’s wearing on him. It’s  _been_ wearing on him. She brushed her hands of it, because it wasn’t her job anymore to step in, tell him he needed to rest or relax or stop banging his head against an unmovable brick wall. 

Steve’s always does whatever he wants to do. But sometimes, he’d let her talk him down. That ended when he called it quits, said he had too much on his plate and she was the appetizer he couldn’t afford for the time being. It hurt, but she accepted it, moved on, got her feet under her. She’s happy where she is now, working with Pepper, visiting Jane for girls’ nights, sans science, practicing her hand-to-hand with Natasha. She’d sworn off men for a while, replaced them with a trusty vibrator that she never had to worry would become distant. 

She still loves him. Loves who she thought he was when they were together. But loving someone doesn’t wipe away the hurt or the mistakes or the lack of fight. He’d let her go, he’d made that choice, so she doesn’t understand what he’s doing in her apartment. 

She sips at her wine, lets it spread across her tongue and rest there; it swamps her taste buds and helps her relax. A minute passes before she finally says, “Unlocked windows aren’t invitations.”

“I know.” He frowns. “I didn’t... You weren’t home and it was either sit in the hallway or...” 

“Break in?” 

His eyes fall. “I used to have a key.” 

“Not to here. How’d you even know where I moved?” 

He scoffs, raising an eyebrow. “You think I didn’t check up on you?”

“No,” she admits frankly. “I didn’t think you thought about me at all.” 

With a wince, his fingers tighten around the arm of the chair. “That’s not true.” 

“You made the choice, Steve. You’re the one who gave up.” 

“I was trying...” He inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and tips his head back. ‘I was trying to do the right thing.” 

“Well, maybe you did. Clearly, something wasn’t working.” She shrugs, even though there’s a little part of her heart that still feels like it was her fault. Maybe she didn’t do enough or just wasn’t enough overall. She hates those thoughts, buries them under nonchalance and snark whenever possible. But they’re there, when she’s trying to sleep and the thought just won’t stop nagging at her. That maybe if she was more  _something_ he wouldn’t have walked away so easily. It’s not fair, and it’s not true, but she gets insecure sometimes. Who doesn’t?

“You were right before. When you said I didn’t show up for dates. I wasn’t... I didn’t prioritize you. There were things I had to do, people I had to help, and I put you at the bottom of the list, every time, and...” He shakes his head. “You didn’t deserve that.” 

“Apology accepted. You can use the front door this time.” 

He lifts his eyes slowly, meets her gaze across the divide. “I  _thought_...” His voice shakes and he raises a hand to rub over his mouth. “For a long time, I wasn’t sure there was an ‘after.’ There was just war. There was always another fight, another enemy, and I thought it was my job. It  _is_ my job. But I thought that was all I was. The job. The soldier. And everything else, every _one_ else, had to come second, and then third and fourth and... And suddenly I wasn’t seeing you at all and I’d come home so late that you’d already be in bed, and when I woke up, you’d be at work, and it was just... I  _missed_ you, but I didn’t... I told myself that I had to make sacrifices to be who I am. But you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to give up your life waiting on me to start living mine.” He blows out a heavy breath and rubs a hand over his forehead. “I wanted you to be happy and I wasn’t... I couldn’t be who you deserved.” 

She turns her gaze down to her wine glass a long moment. “You stopped trying. You can blame it on work, that’s fine. But you had a choice, and you made yours. I tried to be there. I tried to wait up. I tried to talk to you and you just... You didn’t let me.”

“I didn’t want to burden you.”

Her fingers curl into her palm, nails biting at her skin. “That’s not how relationships work. You don’t just take all your stuff on and squirrel it away and never tell me anything. You share it. You try to work through it. You  _trust_ me to be there for you. And you  _didn’t_. I-- I wasn’t who you wanted there. I wasn’t who you wanted to talk to.” 

He shakes his head quickly. “I didn’t know how. I didn’t-- The only one I was ever a hundred percent honest with about anything was Bucky. Darcy, before you, the only person I’d been with was Peggy. And our entire relationship was spent in the war, it was carving out five minutes together between missions. I’ve never... You and me, we were different. You were a curve ball. I wasn’t prepared for you at all. And then you were there and you were just... You were  _everything_  and I was screwing it up every chance I got.”

She licks her lips, rubs her thumb on the underside of her glass. “Not every chance,” she murmurs. There were good times. There were  _really_ good times. But in the end, they weren’t enough.

“I should’ve fought for you.” He meets her gaze, expression twisted with regret. “I should’ve talked to you, explained to you what was going on in my head, I should’ve let you help me. And I just... I told myself you were better off. That all I was ever going to be was a soldier that couldn’t give you what you deserved.” 

“Forget what I deserve, you never asked what I  _wanted_.” Her eyes sting as she blinks quickly. “All I wanted was you. And you couldn’t give me that.” 

He shifts forward in his seat, stares at her earnestly. “Let me try again. Let me... I’ll  _fight_ this time. For us. For  _you_.” He reaches across, touches the tips of his fingers to hers on the arm of the couch. “[Tell me to go and I will](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443). I’d deserve it. [But if you ask me to stay, I’ll never leave you again](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443). Not unless you want me to.”

She stares at his fingers; he’s got dirt under his nails and blood too. He’s still dressed for battle, fresh off a fight and ready for one of a different kind. And maybe he will. Maybe he’ll do better this time. Maybe he’ll talk to her and listen to her and try like he didn’t before. Maybe. And maybe not. In the end, it comes down to what she wants, who she wants. She can survive without Steve. She can pick herself back up if things go sideways. And so can he. It’s not a matter of survival, it’s a matter of happiness. 

Her thumb runs over the tops of his fingers, misses the way they used to be smudged with charcoal and lead. Misses the mornings he’d spend with his drawing book in his lap, sketching her as she drank her morning coffee, catching the way her hair had a mind of its own when she first woke up. She misses the way they used to lay together, wrapped up in each other, his fingers stroking down her back, his heart beating steady under her ear. She misses the stories he’d tell, of the old neighborhood, of him and Bucky running free and wild. The early days, when he was still open and happy and in love with her. She misses the kick in the gut she’d get when she’d turn over each morning and find him there, sleep-mussed and snoring. The fuzzy feeling in her heart when he’d slip his arms around her waist and nuzzle against her neck. 

There’s no guarantee in any relationship. It could fizzle out in a day, a month, a year. Or they could work on it, get better at communicating, learn to push and pull or relent when necessary. Learn to fight for each when it’s needed and let go of each other when it’s time. Maybe it’ll burn her again. Maybe there’s another suitcase in her future and a call to Jane to hold her while she cries. Or maybe not. 

She stands from the couch, leaves her half-drunk wine glass on the table. Her fingers stretch out over his palm and she tugs. He stands from the chair, searches her face for some sign. She can walk him to the door, tell him she’s sorry but she can’t, and he’ll understand. His face will fall and his mouth will shake, but he’ll nod, tell her he gets it and he’s sorry. Because fighting for a relationship is one thing, pushing someone who’s made up their mind for something they don’t want is another. Or she can lead him down the hall to  ~~their~~  her bedroom and start again. 

Her thumb strokes across the top of his hand, her brow furrowed, and she looks up at him, peering down at her, hope in worried blue eyes.

She walks down the hall, pulling him along with her, and leads him into the bathroom. She strips his gear off slowly, lets it drop to the floor, piece by piece, until he’s standing in front of her, bruised and bare. He reaches for her, fingers tucked in the waist of her skirt, and draws her closer. He dips his head down, hovers his mouth just before hers, and waits. 

She kisses him. She opens the door. She chooses hope. 

He pulls her in tight, arm banding around her back, lifting her up off her toes. “Missed you,” he says in between kisses, pressing her back against the wall, tugging her blouse from her skirt. “Missed you so much.” He tears the button off at the back of her skirt. “Sorry. I’ll fix it.” He pushes down the zipper and mouths at her neck for a moment before dropping down and peeling the skirt from her legs. He presses a kiss to her navel, nuzzles himself against her stomach, and lets the skirt pool at her feet as he strokes his hands over the backs of her knees. 

She runs her fingers through his hair, dirty and sweaty still, and brushes it back from his forehead. “You need to shower.” 

He nods, but nips at her hip, unbuttoning her blouse as he stands once more. “Stay with me?” 

And she can hear the double meaning there, lets her head fall back against the wall to stare up at him. Her shirt falls open and his hands frame her waist. He draws her forward, chest to chest, skin to skin, and lets his forehead drop to hers. “ _Stay_. Please?” 

Her hands slide up his shoulder, rub gently over his neck, and she closes her eyes as she nods. He lets out a shaky breath, heavy with relief, and presses a kiss to her brow and her nose and the corner of her mouth. They don’t shower for a little while; they stand there, holding each other, swaying a little.

It’s not perfect; they still have a lot to work through, a lot to say, and they’ll hit roadblocks on the way. But, it’s a start.


	28. “It’s only one night, we’ll just share the bed.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s only one night, we’ll just share the bed.”

“It’s only one night, we’ll just share the bed.”

It was sound reasoning at 1 am, enough so that Steve hadn’t given it much thought. Sure, he’d been fending off his growing feelings for Darcy pretty much from the moment he met her, but they were both adults, they could share a bed. And so they had. 

A mission that involved going undercover, separately no matter how many times Natasha suggested they pose as a couple, had eventually gone wrong, ending in a fight that left him more than a little sore, tired and in desperate need of a few hours of down time. They weren’t due to be picked up until the following afternoon and this was the only place close by that had a vacancy, so they’d made do, climbing in next to each other. Darcy watched some late night TV on low, claiming she was still coming down from the buzz while he’d fallen asleep almost immediately. 

It wasn’t until early the next morning when he woke up to the sound of birds chirping cheerfully outside the window that he maybe doubted this idea. At some point, in the middle of the night, they’d shifted around from the completely innocent, side by side sleeping. Now, his head was on her stomach, her fingers threaded loosely in his hair, while his hand was... wrapped dangerously high around her inner thigh. His fingers flex almost of their own cognition, and he finds himself distracted by how soft her skin is and how good she feels, and then he blinks himself a little more awake. 

A quiet laugh comes from above and he tenses for a moment before he shifts himself back to look at her. She’s half-smiling, an arm tucked behind her head, her hear a mussed mess that falls in her sleepy eyes. “Did you know you’re a cuddler? You suction cupped to me almost as soon as you fell asleep.” 

He felt his ears warm up and struggled to find a way to apologize. 

“At least you shifted down in the night, you were using my chest as a personal pillow for the first hour.” 

His blush travels down his neck. “Sorry. I--I’m...  _Sorry_.” 

Darcy shook her head. “It’s fine. You snore a little too, but I didn’t notice any drool, so that’s a relief.” Her lips quirked then. “In future though, I prefer my bed partners to be awake when we’re feeling each other up.” 

A choked noise exits his throat and he looks up at her, brows raised. 

She strokes her fingers back through his bed head, seeming amused. 

Taking a deep breath, he grabs up his courage and says, “Why don’t we start with breakfast?” 

Her grin was a little softer then. “Deal.”


	29. “Stop running from this. I know I’m not the only one who feels it.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “[Stop running from this. I know I’m not the only one who feels it](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443).”

“Stop running from this. I know I’m not the only one who feels it.”

Darcy paused in the middle of the hallway and turned slowly to see Steve standing a few feet away, his expression earnest and a little hurt. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes sad. Her heart lurched in her chest, but she raised her chin defensively, “I’m not running. Jane needs something; it’s my job to make sure she has it.” 

He sighed, raising an unconvinced eyebrow at her. “Darcy, you’ve been running since the day we met.” 

Okay.  _Ouch._  Far too accurate. But it wasn’t her fault that she almost immediately felt something snap into place between her and the funny, sweet, dorky guy she’d liked from minute one. Commitment scared her though. Friendship not so much. So maybe she was a little relieved when it turned out he had too much on his plate to contemplate what their original flirtation meant. If they still occasionally slipped into it, fine, but she firmly put a kibosh on anything further. Even if she wanted it. Really,  _really_ wanted it. That way led to heartbreak, and she preferred her organs stay perfectly in tact, thank you very much. 

“That’s ridiculous, I don’t even like to  _jog._ ”

His mouth twitched, but he shook his head. “You were the first person to make me laugh. Really, genuinely laugh, since everything went sideways. Surrounded by unfamiliar faces and a whole lot of subterfuge, I tried really hard not to get close. But you...  _You_ came into my life and it was like every wall I put up, you had a back door to, and I don’t know how or why you did it, but it kept me afloat.” 

Well, that was just unfair. Her heart was beating way too quick and her hands were sweating, and suddenly all those nights she spent wondering ‘what if’ didn’t seem quite so ridiculous. But, that didn’t change the circumstances. She loved him, she did. Even outside of the whole  _feelings_ thing, he was one of her best friends, and she couldn’t afford to lose that for a ‘maybe.’ “ _Steve_...” 

“I get it. I get that you’re scared. I’m scared too.” He walked closer, smiling gently. “For the first time since I woke up, things are actually starting to feel stable. I got Bucky back and Sam’s here and the new team is coming together. The only part I keep holding back on is us.” 

Her fingers bit at her palms as she offered what sounded like a flimsy excuse, “There is no us.”  

“But there  _should_ be.” He took another step forward and reached for her hand, rubbing his thumb over the top. “I do stupid, reckless, important things and I don’t always think about the consequences. I walk out of this base knowing I might not come back. I’m not going to sugarcoat things. I’m not going to pretend that my life isn’t really,  _really_ complicated, and that you being in it puts you in a position you probably don’t want to be in. There are downsides. There are a  _lot_ of downsides. But if you give me a chance... I think I could make you happy. I think--”

“You talk too much.” It was a bad idea, one of her worst probably, but it felt so  _right_. She leaned up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and let her mouth hover just short of his. “Anyone ever tell you that?” 

“I’m usually pretty good at speeches,” he murmured, but his hands caught her waist, squeezed gently, and his gaze fell to her mouth. “You’re sure?” 

“You think I throw myself at every guy with some romantic spiel about making me happy?”

“You got a lot of ‘em?” 

“Even if I did, you’re the only one I’m rooting for.” 

He smiled slowly. “No more running?” 

“I told you... I don’t even like to jog.” With that, she kissed him, fingers threaded in his hair and lips seeking out the firm fit of his mouth.

Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe it would end in disaster. And maybe it would be the best choice either of them made. She was willing to find out.


	30. insecure, skinny!steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[I wish you could see yourself the way I see you](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443)."

“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

Steve looked back at her, sprawled out on his bed. It was small and thin and the springs sometimes poked at them if they moved too much. He thought it matched its owner all too well. “Think you might need to get your eyes checked, doll,” he said, hoping to play off his moment of insecurity. 

Darcy shook her head and sat up in bed, the blankets falling to pool in her lap. She was naked underneath, all creamy skin and lush curves. How a dame like her ever fell like a guy like him he still didn’t know, but she had, and she’d stuck with him through days a lesser person would’ve fled from. 

She stood to walk to him, but he frowned. “It’s cold, you shouldn’t...” 

She ignored him, which wasn’t abnormal in the least. Darcy was a firecracker, always had been. And she never let anyone tell her what to do, not for one second. It was half the reason he fell in love with her.

She stopped at his back, warm skin pressed to his, making a quick shiver run through him. He and Buck couldn’t afford to pay for heat so they loaded up on blankets more often than not and wore layers when possible. But when Darcy stayed over, any clothes he wore fled to the floor, and their body heat kept him plenty warm. He could feel the chill in the air now though, could see the goosebumps break out over her arms.

She turned him back toward the dresser mirror he’d been frowning at himself in, fingers rubbing over ribs that stuck out just a little too much and a chest that caved in where it shouldn’t. Her chin fit into the crook of his neck, though she had to reach up on her toes to do it. He was taller, but not by much. 

“All you ever see are things you think need fixin’,” she murmured with a frown. 

“Got a lot that does, hard not to see it,” he sighed. 

“You’re not broken, just different.” She caught his hands and ran her fingers over his. “You create things, beautiful things.” She rubbed her thumb over a splotch of paint he’d missed when he washed his hands last. He couldn’t be certain of the color, he mostly guessed when he had a canvas in front of him. “Your hands are soft and strong and capable. All of you is.”

She brought them up to rub against his ribs again. “I love your body. I love what it does to mine, I love how it feels, I love that it’s  _yours_. There’s nothing I would change about you except how you feel about yourself. Because I don’t see your flaws, Steve, not here, not like this. Maybe you pick too many fights and you will  _never_ admit you’re wrong and you get sarcastic when I want you to be serious, but that’s just who you are. The physical stuff, none of it matters. From where I’m standing, you’re just this side of perfect.” 

He felt a flush start in his cheeks and climb to his ears. He wasn’t good with compliments, but Darcy always seemed keen to make sure he heard them anyway. “You keep that up, I’m gonna get a fat head.” 

She laughed and pressed a kiss to his neck. “Yeah? Well, I’ll love that too.” She nuzzled him with her nose before she let go. “Now come to bed, will ya? I hear it’s cold.” 

He lingered for a moment, still eyeing himself in the mirror. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it really. But maybe he didn’t need to be. 

Turning, he walked back and climbed into the bed next to her, smiling to himself as she stretched herself out against his side, head on his chest and hand across his ribs, just like always, right where she fit. 

“Darce?” he said quietly, his fingers rubbing circles on her bare shoulder under the scratchy cover of the blankets.

She hummed. 

“You know you’re perfect too, right?” 

“‘Course I am. And don’t you forget it.” 

He grinned, bending to press a kiss to her hair. He wouldn’t. Way he figured it, they’d just have to be perfect together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this is one of my favs for these two! :)


	31. "Kiss me, quick!" (skinny!steve)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[Kiss me, quick!]()"

**Sorry, this was[moved to its own story.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4797104/chapters/10978679)**


	32. “I will knock you on your ass if you even think about it.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will knock you on your ass if you even think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> set near the end of CA:tWS

“I will knock you on your ass if you even think about it.”

Steve froze at the edge of his hospital bed, turning his head back slowly to see Darcy standing in the door to his room, her arms crossed over her chest. “Get back in that bed.”

He sighed, leaning back a little, wincing when his ribs ached. “Darcy, I’m fine,” he insisted. 

“That’s the exact opposite of what the doctor’s said.” She strode into the room, an eyebrow raised. “Did you go to medical school when I wasn’t looking? Is that a thing that happened?” 

He rolled his eyes. “ _No.._. But--”

“Then you don’t get to decide what is or isn’t fine. People that jump out of planes without parachutes don’t get to decide what’s fine. People who take down whole shady government agencies with literally  _three_ people on their side do not get to decide what’s fine. People that are found half-dead, laying by the Potomac, do get get to  _decide what’s fine!_ ” 

He winced as her voice progressively got louder. “’m sorry,” he mumbled and very carefully leaned himself back into the hospital bed. 

Darcy didn’t reply, instead moving around the bed to pull the blanket up and over him, her brow furrowed and her eyes down. 

“Hey...” He caught one of her hands and folded their fingers together. “I know you don’t want to hear me say it again, but I really am fine. I promise.” 

Blinking quickly, she shook her head. “This time.” 

“Darce...” 

“You have no sense of limitations, you know that? You just... You throw yourself head first into everything, forgetting that sometimes you’re going to hit a brick wall and even  _your_ hard head won’t make a dent.” 

His mouth twitched faintly. “Not this time though.” 

“Pretty close,” she mumbled, squeezing his hand. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at him. “Your friend with the wings mentioned a certain 1940′s bestie might be in town... I’m not going to ask you not to find him, because that’s stupid and I don’t feel like fighting with you when you’re already in rough shape. But I  _am_ going to ask you to take a couple days to rest up, and to be careful when you go back out.” She stared at him searchingly. “If you wanna bring him home, I’ll set up the guest room, but make sure you do this right, and safely.” Before he could interrupt, she shot him a quelling glare. “I’m serious, Steve. You’re super, you’re not immortal.” 

He pursed his lips, but nodded. “You’re right. I... I’ll try.” 

She snorted, half-smiling. “That’s the best you can do?” 

He grinned at her, and pulled her forward, pressing a kiss to her lips. “I will. Can’t help him if I’m dead or laid up somewhere, right?” 

Rolling her eyes at him, she pecked his lips twice more and then leaned back. “Whatever motivates you.” 

“You know... you remind me of him. He used to try to tell me to slow down too. Kept me from getting into too much trouble. Couldn’t always stop me, but he tried.” 

She smirked. “Good. Then when he comes in, we can  _both_ keep an eye on you.” 

Squeezing her hand, Steve pulled her in until she climbed on the bed to lay next to him. He pressed a kiss to her hair then, and said, “’m lookin’ forward to it.” 


	33. "Don't look back." [Distraction 2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[Don't look back.](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443)"
> 
> [Distraction Series // Part Two]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to the "Kiss me, quick!" chapter, so be sure to read that first!

**Sorry, this has been[moved to its own story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4797104/chapters/10978730).**


	34. "We need to stop meeting like this." [Distraction 3]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We need to stop meeting like this." 
> 
> [Distraction Series // Part Three]

**Sorry, this has been[moved to its own story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4797104/chapters/10978766).**


	35. "We shouldn't be doing this."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[We shouldn't be doing this](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443)."

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

She’s not sure if she should take him seriously, since he says it with his mouth kissing down her neck, and his fingers dragging her dress higher up her hips. “Right. Sure. Why again?”

His teeth scrape over her shoulder, sending a little shiver down her frame. “Friends. We’re friends.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

She slides her hand down his stomach and hinges her fingers on the waist of his pants, giving them a tug. She can feel him through the fabric and she’s eager to get rid of it. “Friends fuck sometimes. Really good friends.  _Lucky_ friends.” 

He groans, his hands fitting themselves around the backs of her thighs and lifting her up like she weighs nothing. He pins her to the wall with his hips, and she wraps her legs around his waist, hooked at the ankle. 

“Just friends?” He arches an eyebrow as he stares down at her. 

She’s caught on the wet, swollen look of his mouth, and words escape her. He’s so pretty. It’s distracting, really. Trying not to notice that and maintain a friendship can be hard. Especially since she’s wanted to jump him from day one. But she’s an adult who has complete control over her hormones. Or at least at hiding them. And Steve had always approached her as a friend and not as something more. So this-- Sneaking away from one of Tony’s party to make out like teenagers. This is new. Not unwelcome, but new. 

“You’re sending some mixed signals here, Steve.” She rocks her hips down against him and grins when his hands flex and grip her thighs. “Friends, more than friends, do this, don’t do this. Make up your mind.” 

“What do you want? What do you...?” His breath leaves him shakily and he reaches a hand up, palm warm across her cheek “Tell me what you want.” 

 _Oh_. She likes the sounds of that. “Like, right now, because I thought that was obvious?” She reaches down to pull his shirt up from his pants, unbuttoning it as she goes. 

“No.” He catches her wrist and stares at her searchingly. “No, what do you want  _after_? Or tomorrow, or--”

“My mind froze up on the present. I’m mostly eager for that part.” 

“Me too.” His mouth twitches. “But I want... I don’t want this to be a one-off. I don’t us to be weird after. I...” He threads his fingers through her hair. “I did this wrong. I was supposed to follow the plan. With the champagne and talking and asking you to get dinner sometime. But you just...” He looks down, his eyes dark. “You’re so beautiful and you kept licking your lips and touching me and... I forget myself with you sometimes. I forget I have an image I’m supposed to live up to.” 

Darcy grabs on to the collar of his shirt and hitches herself a little higher, her arms wrapping around his neck. “Cap’s not here right now. I’ve been hitting on Steve all night.” She smooths her mouth over his and gently nips at his lips. “There’s no pretending here.” 

His body shakes, from his head to his toes, and she feels it reverberate through her. “I wanna fuck you,” he says, his voice deep and dark and full of promise.

Darcy licks her lips, breath leaving her unsteadily. “I like that plan.”

He laughs under his breath. “That’s not all I want to do.” 

“I like that too.” She squeezes her legs around him. “Let’s start with plan one first though. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow, like over breakfast, if I can walk. Points in your favor if I can’t.” 

He laughs and leans down to kiss her again, pressing her back against the wall. And as his mouth and teeth drag down her neck, she figures that was his a-ok of approval on their two part mission. Plan B and C are a go, and she has no regrets.


	36. "I'm dying."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "[I'm dying.](http://leidoscope.tumblr.com/post/128635221443)"

It was stupid. 

So  _stupid_ to think the new building would be safer, that no one would find it. Gun fire sprayed the front entrance; he’d counted four bodies on the floor before the wall to his right exploded, and then the one behind him too. Plaster and chunks of wall rained down around them and the only thing he could think to do was grab her and run. 

Darcy had been walking by when the fight broke out. A mid-morning coffee run for the labs no doubt; she always stopped by the vendor in the foyer around this time. Not that he’d purposely planned to be there when she did or anything... Or maybe he did. He just... He  _missed_ her. Missed seeing her. Missed coming home to and waking up beside her. Missed everything about her. And even if it was just a few minutes to look at her in passing, it slapped a band-aid on a bigger hole for the time being. 

When the bullets started flying, he’d dropped the files in his hands and lurched toward her. 

Completely frozen, she stood by the coffee vendor with her iPod in hand and a shocked, terrified look on her face. He dove toward her, wrapped an arm around her waist and rolled them down and to the floor, out of the line of fire. Taking the gun from his back, he stood to return fire, taking a quick survey of the area, of how many had infiltrated. Black tac gear, head to toe, and armed to the teeth, they moved across the floor in a tight formation. Professionals. And then the all-consuming _boom_  rocked the very floor out of from beneath them. They had no other choice but to move. 

Whoever had infiltrated the building had set up timers in various areas and the walls just kept coming down. They dodged debris, plaster, and glass, rebar sticking out dangerously in some places. Gunfire followed at their heels, and he turned them down a hallway, leading them toward an exit. But boom after boom redirected them until they were stuck, enclosed in a room that was little more than shambles, but just enough to pen them in. 

It was cover from bullets, but it left them cornered and he worried how long the ceiling would last. He examined where they’d come in through, knelt in the scattered fragments to test the crisscrossing metal beams and chunks of concrete in the way. If the structure was strong enough, he might be able to move some pieces, create an opening, get them out. He could hear the fight going on outside, knew the team had answered, and he trusted them to do what they had to. But they needed out, and he needed to help.

“Steve,” Darcy whispered. 

“Just... Just gimme a minute. I think... If I can just get this piece to move...”

“Steve, I think... I think I’m dying.”

He turned around abruptly, his gaze falling to her. Her back was against the wall, hair clinging to the damp, pale skin of her face. She’d been hit, a stray bullet that he hadn’t seen coming. Her hand was pressed to her stomach, blood pulsing out from between her fingers. A cold feeling rushed over him from head to toe and he moved toward her.

“No, hey, Darcy, look at me. You’re gonna be fine.” He undid his suit, shoved it down to his waist and pulled his undershirt up and over his head. Balling it up, he tucked it under her hand, pressed down against her wound. He cringed as she let out pained groan. “I know, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you need to keep pressure on it, okay?” 

Her breath left her in a shaky, wet gasp. “You called-- You called me sweetheart.” 

“Yeah.” He nodded, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. “Yeah, of course I did. You’re still... You’re always gonna my girl, huh?” 

She blinked quickly, tears clouding her eyes. “I wish... Wish it was different. Wish we could go back. We...” She closed her eyes, her head falling back against the wall. “I loved you so much.” 

“I still do. Hey, I still love you.” His hands cupped her face, his thumbs brushing tears back from her cheeks. “I screwed up. I- I put work first. I didn’t know how to balance things. But I missed you. God, Darcy I missed you so much. And I regret it, every day. I just didn’t know how to fix it.” 

Her eyes opened, tears clinging to her lashes. “You’re so bad at talking,” she snorted, offering a wobbly smile. “You remember... the first time we met... God, it was a disaster. You were s-such a dork.” She laughed, but her expression spasmed with pain. “I loved it. I loved...” Her breathing picked up and her eyes grew distant. 

“Darcy, hey... What’d you love? Huh? Talk to me?” He tucked his fingers behind her neck, held her head up when it seemed too heavy for her. “C’mon, sweetheart, talk to me.” 

“’m so tired,” she whispered, licking her dry lips. She blinked quickly, tears falling, and her eyes darted up to him. “You have to take care of Jane. Make sure she eats, okay? She forg-- forgets s’mtimes.” 

“You’re gonna do that. That’s your job.” He sniffled, shaking his head. “You’re not going anywhere, okay?” He leaned in closer, pressing his forehead to hers. “Darcy, please... Please, I can’t lose you.”

She reached up with her good hand, her palm flat against his chest, and she tapped her thumb against his heart, just like she used to at night, before they’d fall asleep, and in the mornings, when she was just waking up.  _“Just double checkin’ your old ticker’s workin’.”_   A sob welled up in his throat. 

His fingers shook in her hair as he tipped his head down, his mouth hard against hers. “Don’t fall asleep. Don’t close your eyes, okay?”

“ _Steve!?_ ” he heard then, just on the other side of the wall. 

“Bucky!” he shouted back. “Bucky, the wall. We need the wall down. Darce-- Darcy’s hurt. I-- I don’t know what to do. I don’t...” He looked back at her, his eyes darting over her face. “Keep your eyes open, sweetheart. Hey, look at me...” He rubbed his thumb down her cheek. “You remember all those times I said we’d take some time off, huh? Go on vacation somewhere warm. You brought all those brochures, you remember? You got that grass skirt, you wore it all week to send me a message. I...” He shook his head. “We’ll go. We’ll go tomorrow, okay? Just, just stay with me. Please.” 

He could hear the wall crumbling behind him, could hear the whine of metal as the beams were moved, could feel the dust falling from the ceiling. 

“They’re almost here. Help’s coming. Darcy, open your eyes. Darcy,  _fuck_.”

Her eyes fluttered and her lips curled faintly. “Language,” she mouthed. 

He let out a breathless laugh, kissed her hair. “I bought a ring,” he confessed shakily. “Before I screwed it up. I bought a ring.” His fingers trembled against her neck, searching out her pulse. “It was always you, sweetheart. I’m just slow. I didn’t fix it quick enough. I didn’t... I dragged my feet. I’m sorry. I... I’ll do it right this time.” 

Cool air from outside flowed in, he felt it break against his back, and he turned his head to see Bucky, and Thor behind him, dirty and stressed. 

“You see? They’re here. It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay.” He lifted her from the ground then, his heart climbing his throat when she didn’t make a noise, not even in complaint, her head lolling to his shoulder. But her hand... Her hand touched his heart. “C’mon, Darcy. Stay with me.” He climbed out of the hole, clutching her close, and hurried down the hall. 

“Medical wasn’t hit. Cho’s waiting,” Bucky told him. 

Steve ran. He dodged the mess on the floor, jumped over piles of debris, ducked under crossing beams, and nearly crashed through a glass door, but he made it.  _He made it._

“Hey, we’re here. Darcy, we’re here.” He gave her a little shake, but she didn’t move. “Darcy?” 

Her hand slid limply from his chest and his breath caught. “Sweetheart?” 

Cho appeared in front of him, yanking on his elbow, directing him to the table to lay her down. And he stared, at her pale skin and still form, his heart hitching in his chest. Cho and her nurses gathered around Darcy, pushing him back, out of the way, while they exchanged medical garble at each other that he only vaguely understood. 

He stared, watched them struggle to bring her back, felt the world fade down to that moment, to her hand hanging off the table and her face so unnaturally still. 

Steve pressed a hand to his chest, tapped his fingers there, and whispered, “ _Please_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's an option here. we can leave it in a place of 'did she or didn't she die?' or i can write a sequel...


	37. "I'm dying" 2a [sad sequel]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to chapter 36: "I'm dying." | Sad!version // Tissue Warning!

He can hear the metal as it spins on the floor, hear the clatter as it inevitably loses momentum and tips over, falls to its side, still and quiet. He picks it up between two fingers, gives it another spin, watches the gold and diamond glint in the low light. This time when it falls, he picks it up, lets it slide down his index finger. It’s much too small for him, but she had such  _small_ fingers. 

_You mean stubby? That’s why my piano teacher wanted to drop me. Said my fingers were stubby..._

She kept up with it though, her and her stubby fingers proved him wrong. He can still remember coming home, the piano keys bending under her will. He could always tell how her day went depending on the melody she was playing. It was haunting, depressing, the day he walked into the apartment to find her bags lined up. When hoping and waiting for him to put her first wasn’t good enough anymore. He can hear the song still, like musical cobwebs clinging to the shadows of his memory, strum one note and the rest follow in debilitating succession. 

His thumb catches on the diamond of the ring, draws it down, and he stares at the shiny gold reflection of the band. He draws a knee up, rests his arm against it, and stares at the ring. He carried it around with him for weeks, looking for the right moment, willing the right words to come. But there were so many missions, so much work he still had to do, and eventually he started leaving the ring behind, tucked in its satin pillow, safe and sound. But it wasn’t content there. Wasn’t happy to sit around and wait, shelved until he was ready, until he could make the time. 

She had every right to leave. Probably should have done it sooner. He just wishes... Maybe if he’d woken up sooner, if he’d pulled his head out of his ass and just  _talked_ to her. Listened when she said she felt like she was being left behind and forgotten. Heard her when she told him she loved him but she couldn’t spend her life hoping he’d let himself live. 

He thought... It was naive, dumb even, but he thought if he could just finish that next mission, write up that last report, prep those last few recruits, that eventually the work would fade and he could carve out a regular life. That he could go to her, apologize for not balancing things better, and they could get back on track. But that was the problem. She was second. Maybe not even that, scaling even further down the ladder under everything else he prioritized. 

Work he could do. Fight, plan for battle, train, he could do that with one arm tied behind his back. But  _talk_ , communicate, admit his failings,  _that_ he struggled with. He was stubborn, it kept him alive most of his life. The problem was, he never learned that there were some things he didn’t have to fight, didn’t have to be right about. He was a man, as infallible as any other, and sometimes he made mistakes. Letting her go was one of them. Not saving her... Mistake wasn’t the right word for that. 

There’s a bottle on the floor, three more beside it. The burn feels nice, like fire down his throat and coating his tongue. But it does nothing; he can’t even catch a buzz. So he sits in the hollowed out room, surrounded by debris, wishing things were different. That maybe  _he_ was different. That he’d learned that laying down arms, that surrender, wasn’t always bad. Maybe if he’d admitted he didn’t know how, asked her to teach him, then all this time wouldn’t have been wasted. So much  _time_... 

The perpetrators, those that were alive, were rounded up. Natasha and Bucky were interrogating them. Finding out the how and why and who. He should be there.  _Would_ be there any other time. 

He closes his eyes, presses a fist to his forehead as his brow draws together so tightly it  _hurts_. 

_He knows as soon as Helen steps out of the surgery room. Her eyes are exhausted and empty. There’s blood on her scrubs and she folds her hands together in front of her, but he can see them shaking. She glances at the others, but she walks directly to him._

_He starts shaking his head before she even reaches him, and his knees shake. 'No...’_

_‘I’m so sorry, Steve,' she says, swallowing thickly. 'We did_ everything  _we could.’ She licks her lips as they tremble. 'The damage was too severe.’_

_‘No, no, no...’ He’s pushing past her, shoving into the surgical room before anyone can stop him. 'Darcy...’_

_The room is sterile and the staff has already removed most of the machines, the tubes, and all the tools. They linger around the fringes, quiet and watching, reeking of pity._

_Darcy is in the center of it all; she’s so still. It’s eerie. Darcy who was always moving, always talking and laughing. But now there’s nothing. The room rings hollow and her body is left bereft of everything that made her who she was. The faces she used to make, she could say more with her eyebrows than just about anybody he knew. Her expression was blank now, empty._

_The walk to her seems to echo, his boots on the floor so loud in his ears. He reaches out slowly, lets a hand skim up her arm, and his breath catches in his throat. There’s little more than a white blanket to cover her top half, waiting to be drawn up over her face, to shroud her from the world._

_His knuckles brush her neck, but he doesn’t look for a pulse, doesn’t think he can handle not finding one. His thumb slides under the hinge of her jaw, his fingers threading in her hair; there’s still bits of plaster strung through dark strands. The antiseptic smell of the room covers everything but he knows, he_ knows  _what her shampoo smells like, catches a breath of it that’s more memory than anything._

 _He’s prayed more times than he can count. The few times his prayers felt selfish were when he begged God to let his mother go peacefully, the same for Bucky when he fell from the train, and later, when he just wants Bucky to come back to him, to be okay. But he begs now, he begs for something he knows God can’t give him. -_ Give her back, please. I need her back _.-_

_She doesn’t move, doesn’t stir or breathe or snore. She always denied it, as if she’d ever heard herself sleeping, but he liked it, took comfort in it after long days and longer weeks. He lingered in bed most mornings, just listening to her, putting off the day as long as he could. And she didn’t know. Didn’t know how much he loved her, how much he wanted to spend his whole life listening to that snore._

_His hands shake as he lifts her up from the hospital bed, draws her against his chest, blanket tucked around her. He wants to say something, wants to apologize, to explain himself months too late,_ hours  _too late. But he can’t get the words out. Can’t manage to do much more than hold her._

 _He drags a hand over her hair, presses a palm to her cheek, but it’s so cold. God, she’s so cold. He draws one of her hands to his chest and rubs his own over the back of it, trying to warm her. It’s pointless, some part of him knows it, but another part can’t-- He_ can’t  _let go._

_Time passes, slow and fast. He’s crying, he knows he is, can feel the tears sliding unchecked down his cheeks. He has no idea how long he’s been standing there, but he’s not ready to walk away._

_‘Steve...’_

_Bucky’s hand is on his shoulder, squeezing._

_He tugs gently. ‘Steve, you need to let go...’_

_There’s a pair of nurses behind him, fretting, wringing their hands, waiting to put her away in a fridge somewhere; the thought makes Steve’s belly lurch and bile crawl up his throat. He shakes his head, more of a jerk than anything._

_‘Stevie, I- I’m sorry...' _Bucky’s voice is hoarse and thick. '_ ‘m so sorry, but she’s gone. Darcy’s gone. You gotta... They gotta take her away now.’ _

_He wants to fight them. Wants to shove them back, tell them they can’t have her. It’s a ridiculous thought. None of them did this to her. They tried to help her. They tried... A fiery twist in his chest wants to lash out. They_ failed _. They didn’t save her. Maybe it was him. If he’d gotten her out sooner. If he’d covered her better. If he’d seen the attack coming..._

_He crumbles a little more, hunching over her, and he shakes his head. But Bucky’s there, pulling his arms off Darcy, untangling his fingers from her hair, holding him up as his body wants to shut down, let him be crushed under the swell of his grief. Bucky half-carries him out of the room, squeezes the arm around him as he tries to look back._

_'Don’t,’ he warns, like he knows... He knows it won’t help any._

_And Steve tries not to, he really does, but he catches sight of her in the reflection of a window. Of the nurses drawing the blanket up and over her face. She’s gone, she’s_ gone _. His heart bursts like a live grenade in his chest. His hand raises up, presses against it like he can catch the pieces before they fall to the floor to be stepped on and swept away, but there are too many and they slip through the cracks._

He doesn’t remember a lot after that. He thinks Bucky left him in his room, told him to try and get some sleep, that he’d come back when he had information. He must have, since he knows Bucky joined the interrogation effort. 

Time is elusive, it blinks in and out for a while. Until eventually he’s sitting in the room they’d been trapped in, with four bottles of scotch and a ring he never got a chance to give her. Would she have said yes? Maybe later, in time, when he proved he could make it work, that he could try harder at balance, that he could put her first. 

The sound of wood sliding against wood, plaster cracking on pavement, draws his attention. It’s not Bucky; he wouldn’t have made a sound. Somehow Steve’s not all that surprised when it’s Jane who ducks under a beam and enters the room. She doesn’t say anything, just takes a seat in front of him. A few seconds pass before she reaches out to snag a half-empty bottle of Scotch. She unscrews the cap and takes a long swig, scrunching up her nose and blinking against the sharp burn. 

She’s not much of a drinker, he knows. He’d found her on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet, more than a few times after she and Darcy had one of their girl’s nights. Darcy handled her liquor better, but she was a baby in the morning, when the hangover hit. He’d learned to stock up on water and ibuprofen and to pick up her favorite greasy breakfast from her favorite diner. Two eggs, over easy, three strips of bacon, lots of hashed browns, and toast with strawberry jam. He’s never going to pick up her usual order again and it leaves a heavy weight in his stomach. 

“Wasn’t supposed to go like this,” Jane says, her voice thick and scratchy. She drags the back of her hand over her cheek roughly, swipes at a tear like she’s angry it fell. “Stars don’t have guns, space isn’t supposed to come with automatic rifles...” 

He winces, feels her words like an accusation. 

“Should’ve known in Puente Antiguo...” She scoffs out a humorless laugh. “Jackbooted thugs and giant Destroyers... Science comes second to war. We were explorers, just trying to answer all those questions you don’t have answers for. What’s out there? What’s the point? How important are we in the greater scheme of things...? We discovered bridges to other worlds,  _aliens_ , a hierarchy we didn’t even know was out there, where we weren’t anywhere near the top. And still...  _Still,_ it’s our own kind that get us in the end.” 

Her shoulders slump, and she’s always been small, but now she looks so impossibly tiny and brittle. He thinks about reaching for her, remembers Darcy’s words about taking care of Jane, but he can’t bring himself to lift his hand. So he draws his eyes from her and settles them on the ring winking at the end of his finger. 

“She loved you,” he says instead. “Like a sister.” 

“Yeah,” she rasps, her mouth quivering. “Big sister Jane who doesn’t remember to eat or sleep or take regular showers, who needs her to look out for me, pull me back from the edge, curb the ‘science hysteria’...” She laughs, tears spilling freely. “What do I  _do_?” she wonders, shaking her head and pressing a hand to her mouth. “What am I supposed to do without her?” 

Steve licks his lips, his own tears slipping free. “Should have a speech, about making her death worth something, not giving up, but I don’t.” He raises his eyes to meet hers, his own grief and surrender palpable. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits, half-smiling in bitter resignation. “I don’t know what happens after this.” 

Jane stares at him, searches his face, and then nods. Her gaze falls to the ring, and she doesn’t look surprised. If anything, she looks knowing. Her mouth ticks up faintly. “She loved you too.” 

“Yeah?” He wonders sometimes, near the end there, if she still could, after everything that happened. “Even after...?” 

Jane nods. “Yeah. Of course.” Her brows furrows. “She said she wasn’t waiting, that if you wanted her, you knew where to find her, but I know Darcy... She never gave up on you. She was just... tired of being the one to reach out, I guess. Wanted you to reach back.” 

Steve nods jerkily, blinking rapidly. “I was too late,” he chokes out. 

“You told her?” Jane moves a little closer, reaches out to cover his wrist and squeezes gently. “You were with her before she... Before she  _died_. You told her you loved her?” 

He nods. “ _Yeah_.” 

_(“I still do. Hey, I still love you.”)_

“Did she say it back?” Jane wonders. 

He opens his mouth to say no, not really, but then he feels it like a phantom touch, feels her fingers tapping against his chest. 

He whispers, “Yeah. She told me.” In her own way. 

And Jane smiles faintly, a vague uptick of her lips that’s almost swamped by the exhaustion on her face. “Did she... Was there anything else she said?” she wonders,  _hopes_.

( _“You have to take care of Jane. Make sure she eats, okay? She forg-- forgets s’mtimes.”_ )

He nods. “Wanted me to take care of you.” 

“Oh.” Jane nods, blinking back tears. “Yeah. Sounds like her.” She sniffles, turns her eyes away a long moment. When she looks back, she lifts the bottle for him to see. “I’m gonna take this.” 

And he nods, it’s not like it does anything for him. 

Jane stands from the floor, hugging the bottle to her chest. She lingers a moment, watching him, and then she walks to the make-shift door and ducks under the beam. 

He knows it’ll hurt more, no matter what her answer, but he calls after her anyway.

She stops, looks back at him, her head tipped a little in question. 

He holds the ring up, watches a shaft of light glint off it. “Do you think...?” 

Her smile is sad. “You really wanna know?” 

His brows furrows. “Think I’ll always wonder.”

Jane nods, doesn’t answer right away, and he feels his heart thud heavy in his chest. He considers taking it back, wonders if not knowing might be better, easier somehow. But then her eyes lift and she looks at him, lets out a quiet sigh. 

“Darcy loved you, Steve. She was heartbroken when you split up. She went to the coffee vendor every day at the same time because she knew you’d be there and she just wanted to see you, even if it was just for a few seconds...” 

His breath catches at that. 

She nods then, and turns on her heel to walk away. 

He stares at where she stood for a long time, and then his eyes fall back to the ring on his finger. He twists it back and forth a few times before he takes it off, turns it on its side and looks at the tiny inscription on the inside. 

_‘Til forever, sweetheart_

Who knew forever was so short?


	38. fallen angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [darcy](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=188032831)

Darcy doesn’t like the term ‘angel’ and she especially doesn’t appreciate the term ‘ _fallen angel_.’ But, if you want to get technical, that’s what she is. Only she’s not taking the ‘fallen’ part too seriously, considering she’s still doing her job, whether she’s human now or not.

Darcy has watched over a lot of people in her lifetime. Back when she had wings and the ability to correct a person’s path just a smidge, she made sure that all of her charges led good, fulfilled lives. Were there mistakes and missteps along the way? Sure, that was the way of humans. But, in the end, they were happy, and they accomplished what they set out to do. 

Steve Rogers was an enigma. From the moment he was born, too early by the doctor’s estimate, and far too small, she knew she had a handful to look forward to. He was sickly and tiny and, though he met a fair few obstacles along the way, he always managed to overcome them. She’ll admit she helped occasionally, more by putting the right people in his path than anything else. 

She nudges Bucky Barnes down a side street, so he’ll bump into a scrappy Steve rather than walk right on past him without a clue. She makes sure Erksine is there to overhear Steve’s impassioned speech about the war and duty. But it’s Steve who earns their love and support. Steve’s heart and courage and strength, regardless of how his body might mitigate that, which gained their friendship and unwavering belief in him. Darcy was a guardian; she made sure that what safety could be provided _was_ provided. But she was no wish granter; he had to earn the life he lived like anyone else. And, in her estimate, he had more than earned that life. 

She wants to push him out of the plane as he says his farewell to Peggy Carter. She wants to argue with him, tell him that what he’s doing is dangerous and foolish. There’s been a fair few times she’s wanted to say that to him, but this… There’s a weight in the pit of her belly that tells her this is different. He’s leapt from planes and run head-first into gunfire and kissed strong, beautiful women atop speeding cars, but this… this leads somewhere she’s not sure she can follow. 

Darcy doesn’t lose her wings because Steve Rogers goes into the ice. Plenty of guardians have failed their charges, have lost them too young and rife with potential. She loses her wings because she disobeys orders. It’s 2018, and Darcy has seen the rise and fall of her favorite charge. She’s seen him die and live and find his best friend again. She’s seen him fight for survival and truth and justice. She’s seen him go to battle against his own friends and teammates and even himself. And she’s seen him struggle with nightmares and guilt and the overwhelming weight of grief. But it’s not until the moment she sees true and sincere defeat line his face. Until Bucky lays limp and unresponsive, until the world around him is burning to ash, until Steve’s hand, always so steady and strong, even when the bones were ever so brittle, releases his shield and winds around a bleeding, gaping wound in his side. It is then that she says ‘ _enough_.’ 

His team is failing, the world, at least as he knows it, is ending, and Darcy has lost him once, nearly lost him too many times before and after that– she won’t stand for it again. 

The first feather falls as she makes her decision, and she can feel her wings ripple with the weight of her disobedience. She suffers through it. For as long as Darcy can remember, she has been a guardian from afar. She’s witnessed as many scraped knees as she has wars. She’s watched men and women bleed and cry alike. She’s stood audience to the rise and fall and rise again of the human race, and it has shaken her foundation a few thousand times. But it is this man, this soul, that she will not let perish.

As her feathers, once a brilliant, glowing silver, piece away into ash, she relieves herself of her duty, her oath, her promise to allow life to unfold as it must. Her robes, a pristine white, turn black as night, and while her powers should ebb away, leaving her human in every way, they don’t. Not entirely. She is fallible, killable, and she imagines, eventually, she will succumb to age and death like any other. But there is power still in her, thrumming through her veins, a force to be reckoned with. 

Darcy falls to earth like a meteor, in a blaze of fire, and she lands, kneeling in the small crater her body has formed on impact, just feet from her charge. She stands, her skin spotted with soot, and smoke coming off her in wispy curls. [Her dress is in tatters, the skirt reaching just above her knees, and the fabric shredded and layered with burn marks](http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=188032831). Her feet are bare and she can feel the sharp gravel biting at her skin, but she stands readily. 

The enemy that steps forth reeks of blood and death. He’s twice her height, easily, towering high above, reveling in the glory of battle. His skin a gruesome grey, lips an ashy white, and eyes an eerie yellow. He is not of this realm, but he wants it for his own. He and his army, stronger than the average human, and even the above-average. Thor Odinson was felled by this creature; not dead, she thinks, but unconscious for the time being. Most of the Avengers have followed suit. Steve remains. But his strength is sapped and his fear for Bucky is distracting. He thinks him dead, thinks he’s lost the last, remaining tie he has to where he came from. Darcy does not blame him for his exhaustion; it’s been building for some time now. But if he wants to live, he’ll have to find some reserve of strength in him somewhere. 

The creature before her sniffs at the air and licks his lips, leaving a trail of red saliva in the wake of his tongue. “You are not of here, female.” His voice is deep, and an echoing growl vibrates in his throat.

“Neither are you,” she says, quite calmly, and  reaches behind her to retrieve her swords. “You’re trespassing.” 

“Who are you, to speak to me as my superior?” he growls, slamming a six-fingered fist against his chest. Dust flakes off of him, as if his flesh is shedding and regrowing at all times. A healing factor, she supposes. 

“Darcy, guardian of this human.” She casts her gaze around the wasteland of what was once Brooklyn, New York. “You can’t have him. And seeing as he’s particularly fond of his team and _Earth_ , you can’t have them or it either.” 

He stares at her a beat and then laughs, his head thrown back in mirth. “You think you match me, female? You think you have the ability to-” 

Darcy has never been fond of villainous speeches. She’s heard many over her years, and more than enough just in watching over Steve. So it is with great speed and little patience that she leaps up into the air and draws her arms together swiftly, slicing his head from his shoulders, and watching impassively as it bounces on the battle-stricken ground, three times, before his body falls as well. The ground shudders under the weight of him, rocks and debris bouncing and rattling.  

Landing gracefully on her feet, she murmurs, “Grow that back.” Replacing one of her swords on her back, she pivots on her heel and returns to Steve. He’s still seated on the ground, an arm around his ribs. His eyes are wide and his mouth gapes a little. 

“You… Who _are_ you?” 

Darcy smiles and reaches an arm out to him. He takes it, allowing her to pull him to his feet. 

“Okay, so, you remember when you were five and you had scarlet fever?” 

His brows furrows as he nods jerkily. 

“Your mother cried as the fever broke and she told you that you must have some kind of guardian angel looking out for you.” Darcy nods. “I always liked her. She was good people. Smart too.” 

Steve blinks at her. “How… You…” He shakes his head.

Darcy stretches her fingers along the handle of her sword. “We have a lot to do. Bucky’s alive, but he needs medical attention. Actually, most of your team does. We should regroup, find a place to make a plan.” She nods, eyes sweeping over the ground around her. “Quickly. They’ll know their commander is dead soon.” 

“I have questions,” he says. “A _lot_ of them.” 

Impatient, she blows out a sigh. “My job was watching over you, so I have, from the day you were born,” she tells him.

“That long? I…” His eyes narrow. “Then where have you been? Why didn’t you do anything before? There were people _dying_ –” 

“They weren’t my people,” she says. “Not my charges.” 

“Not your–” He scoffs bitterly. “So you just wipe your hands of them?” 

Darcy takes a step toward him, peering into his face thoughtfully. “I was a soldier. Have been for as long as I can remember. I had orders, so I followed them. My job was to watch your back. It wasn’t always easy and there were times that I wanted to intervene, but I’m only allowed to do so much. I brought you Bucky, I made sure you met Erksine. My reach only goes so far.” 

“I was in the ice for _seventy_ years. And you knew…? The _whole_ time.” 

“I knew you’d be found when you needed to be. And you were. You were back just in time to help save Earth from Loki and the Chitauri. You were there to defeat HYDRA and retrieve Bucky. You fought to keep Ultron from destroying this world. You were where you were meant to be _when_ you were meant to be there.” 

“Then why come now? _Huh?_ What makes this time so special?” 

“You were giving up,” she says, and it isn’t meant to be an accusation, but it becomes one. “You didn’t believe you could do it.” 

“I was tired. I just needed a moment to rest. I–”

“There is no rest in war. You know that better than anyone. You rest, you _die._ And I won’t let that happen.” She stares at him searchingly. “I have witnessed every good and terrible moment of your life. I have watched you bleed and cry and win and fail. I stood by your side while your mother sat with you through every fever, every illness, _pleading_ with me or Yggdrasil or anyone who would hear her that you should live. I have felt every lung-squeezing, bone-rattling cough you’ve had since you were born. I have watched you grow in body and mind and I have loved you as only someone who has seen your soul _can_.” She stabs a finger against his chest. “ _You_ gave up. But it’s _not_ your time. I won’t let it be. So pick up your shield, Steve. We have a war to win.” 

He stares at her, his eyes wide and his mouth twisted, but he has no words to say. 

“I vote we listen to her, punk.” 

They both turn, to see a wounded, bleeding Bucky struggling to sit up, groaning and wincing as he does. 

 _“Bucky!_ ” Steve hurries to him, and falls to one knee to help him stand.

“I gotta do everything,” Darcy mutters, before she puts her sword away and plucks his shield from the ground. She walks toward them, grabbing up Bucky’s other arm and swinging it around her shoulder. 

Together, they start moving, in search of the rest of his team. 

“So… Did it hurt?” Bucky smirks at her. “When you fell from heaven?” 

Darcy rolls her eyes. “I see you’re feeling better.” 

“Who wouldn’t when I’ve got an angel by my side?” 

Snorting, she shakes her head. “I should’ve expected you would take the news better than he would.” 

“He’s a skeptic.” 

“What’s that make you?” 

“I’ve seen hell,” he says, a little more serious now. “Willing to bet there’s a heaven too.” 

Darcy hums. “It’s not ready for you yet, Barnes. So let’s see about getting you help, hm?” 

He grins at her, a grimace pulling his mouth down. “You’ll watch his back for  me?” 

“I think I can shoulder the job a little while. But we’ve been sharing it for so long, I’ll need you back at your best in record time.” 

“Hear that, punk? You’re so reckless, you need two of us.” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “I seem to remember you jumping into just as many fights as me.” 

“Protective measure,” he defends. “Gotta watch your back, Stevie.” 

“We watch each others.” 

Darcy pivots then, and raises the shield up to take an energy blast careening toward them. Teeth grit, she looks between them and says, “And I’ll keep an eye on _both_ of you _.”_ Releasing Bucky, she pulls a sword from her back. “Reckless humans,” she mutters as she walks forward to meet the latest attacker.

Steve watches her go, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. 

Bucky grins knowingly. “So who’s gonna watch out for her then?”

Steve sighs; it’s a different, more welcome, kind of defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally, i had darcy's dialogue a little more like thor's, but then i figured her speech patterns would probably better mimic steve/humans, because she's been watching over them all her life. so her way of speaking would probably fall in line with theirs.


	39. top notch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **polyvore** : [darcy](http://www.polyvore.com/darcy_oneshot_12/set?id=188637164)

Darcy never expects his hands to be rough. Maybe because of the serum or because he always looks so buttoned up. But he’s not the virginal gentleman some might like to think of him as. There are elements of apple pie threaded throughout him; honor and justice and all that jazz. But he’s still human, imperfect and wanting and just as eager as she is. He slides a hand down her side, fingers curled so they leave stripes that fade as the pressure passes. But she can feel them, the imprint of his touch, burning on her skin.

There’s a trail of clothes leading from her door. Her boots and cardigan were first, then her top, her watch (it wouldn’t stop catching on his shirt), the socks she’d toed off while she was awkwardly leaned back against the couch (it shifted forward under their combined weight), his shirt and belt, his shoes scattered with a few feet between them (he’d kicked them off once and left a dent in her wall; it was worth it to see him in a tool belt later). By the time they reach her room, she’s kicking her jeans off and pushing at the waist of his, thumbs stroking along his hip bones.  

Kissing down her neck, he unclasps her bra and drags it down her arms, tossing it to the floor before he’s wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her up. She drags along his front, his undershirt still on, and hitches her legs on his hips. Hands fitting under her ass, his fingers slide under the fabric of her underwear, squeezing. 

Darcy arches her back, shifting her head to get her hair out of the way. He always pulls it down, and she gets the appeal but it’s a bitch to get back in order later. 

She wets her lips as she tries to catch her breath, and a tiny voice of reason takes the opportunity to interrupt. Her voice is unsteady as she reminds him, “We said we weren’t going to do this anymore…” 

Two months ago they’d ended their  _thing._ It would take all her fingers and toes to count how many times they’ve gone back on that decision. She’s not complaining, exactly, but he’d been the one to say it wasn’t fair to her or them that he was always working and couldn’t put in enough time for their relationship. Apparently sex wasn’t off the table, however; in fact, a good chunk of their hook ups had _involved_ a table. But he’d put a kibosh on that too, saying it was too easy to blur the line and he didn’t want them to ruin their friendship. How noble. It was a little hard to take him seriously when he buried his face between her thighs ten minutes after that pointless speech. But she still felt it was important to bring up. Maybe because she was tired of the guilty walk of shame he did afterwards, or maybe because she was tired of them avoiding the obvious. 

The sex was great, top notch really, but that’s not all that’s between them. It’s just a culmination of everything else, the pay off for some really awesome chemistry. But she likes the downtime just as much. She likes the conversation and getting take-out and hearing about his day and sharing her own. She likes curling up with him on the couch and watching just as many movies from his day as she makes him watch from hers. She likes how he texts her throughout the day and how he calls her ‘sweetheart’ and knowing that, at the end of a bad day, he’ll be there to talk to. She likes  _him_ , even with all the unexpected mission interruptions and the death-defying stunts. 

“I lied,” he tells her, mumbling against the top of her breast as his teeth scrape along her skin in an arch. 

“Yeah?” She rings an arm around his neck and slides the other down between them, slipping it under the fabric of his jeans and boxer-briefs. “About which part?” 

“All of it.” He kneels on the bed and leans her back until she can feel the cool sheets on her bare skin. She slides her hand up his neck and into his hair, the other pulling out of his jeans to push them off his hips. He shifts down the bed, out of reach, and tugs her underwear down her hips and thighs, leaving them at her knees until she shifts her legs and kicks them off. He crawls in between her spread legs and hitches them over his shoulders. “I think I pulled the parachute early. Relationships aren’t always easy.” He nods and kisses down her thigh. “We can make it work.” 

She huffs out a laugh. “Yeah? Two things. One, when have you _ever_ used a parachute? And two, who gave you the relationship pep talk?” 

“There were a few times in the 40′s, when I was still testing my limitations. And it was Sam. And then Bucky. And then Natasha half-threatened, half-encouraged me. I’m not entirely sure which side of the fence she fell on, actually.” 

Darcy laughs, and tucks an arm behind her head to give her a little leverage in seeing him better. “So that’s your official decision on things? You want to give us another try?” 

His hands hold her hips steady as he lifts her up and pulls her a little closer, his hot breath fanning over her. “If you’ll have me.” 

Darcy drags her teeth over her lip. “I don’t know. I might need some convincing. I didn’t have three people talk me off the ledge.” She raises an eyebrow. “Think you’re up to the job, soldier?” 

He grins wolfishly. “Mission accepted.” 


	40. things you said when you thought i was asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things you said when you thought i was asleep

Darcy’s no stranger to the late-night call-ins. He has to slip out for missions sometimes, without no warning except a particularly annoying trilling noise from his phone. Generally, she sleeps right through it, wakes up in the morning to a ‘sorry, sweetheart, I’ll see you when I get back, coffee’s on me’ sticky note. One of many; she’s got a little collection of them in a journal she’s mostly used for spare paper to write grocery lists on. It’s a colorful clutter of pink and blue and yellow notes in his chicken-scratch writing that he refuses to admit is barely legible. 

He’s quiet when he gets up; she doesn’t even feel him leave the bed. It’s not until later, when he trips over one of her shoes as he’s redressing after a quick shower, that he curses under his breath and grabs the bed for balance, jarring it and waking her up in the process. She can hear the shoe join the others as he tosses it back in her closet, and then his towel lands in the laundry basket and the rustling of clothing is the only noise in the room. 

Darcy is a ‘can’t talk before coffee’ type, so she doesn’t say a thing, just listens to him move around. Quiet on his feet but muttering under his breath, fragments of sentences that make more sense in his head than outloud. Names and duties and ‘no, no that won’t work,’ like he’s strategizing it all out as he gets ready. It’s cute, in that ‘we’ve been dating for four months and everything you do is still pretty damn adorable’ kind of way. 

The bedside clock says it’s 3:18 am and she’s mentally going over the math for how much longer she’ll get to sleep before she has to be up to join Jane in the lab when he circles around to her dresser and digs out one of her purple stacks of sticky notes. He scratches out a little message and then turns, pressing it to the edge of the table so it’s the first thing she’ll see when she wakes up. And then he’s kissing her head and murmuring, “love you, be safe,” against her hair. 

It takes her a second, maybe three, to process the words, and by that time he’s already left, shield on his back and fingers tapping away at his phone screen. They haven’t said those three words yet, not really. But it’s been a good four months. Life is busy and the world needs saving far more than she likes to know, but she’s happy. Happier than she’s ever been.  

Darcy rolls over, grabs up his pillow, and hugs it to herself; she falls asleep smiling. 

Two days later, when he comes home, she slaps a blue sticky note to his chest mid-welcome home kiss. When he peels it off, ‘ _love you too’_ is written across it. He grins.


	41. things you said at the kitchen table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things you said at the kitchen table

“When that leg started wobbling, I really wasn’t sure it was going to hold,” she pants, leaned back, arms extended behind her. “Good job table, you deserve a participation trophy.” 

Steve laughs, a little breathless, his fingers skimming up and down her thighs, her legs still tied around his waist. “Table gets an A for effort, but we probably shouldn’t push it…” 

Darcy takes a look around before quipping, “I’m pretty sure we pushed it halfway across the kitchen.” 

He grins, a little smug, and reaches for her, lifting her up and off the table, knees hitched high on his sides. 

“To the shower!” she declares, and points to the hall. 

Neither of them are all that surprised when the table falls apart later that night, but Darcy insists it’s just a good excuse for pizza on the couch. The very _sturdy_ couch…


	42. Things you said that made me love you more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things you said that made me love you more

“You want the last slice of pizza?” 

Darcy stares at him, her brows hiked, because Steve is a generous man, she knows this. But there are some things that he holds dearly, food is one of them, and she’s seen him put Bucky in a sleeper-hold just so he could have the last slice.

Her eyes narrow suddenly. “Is this a trick? Am I being pranked? What day is it today?” 

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not a trick. If you want the last piece, you can have it.” 

“Are you sick? Do I need to call Helen? Jane? Poison Control?” 

“ _Darcy_ …” His mouth is inching up in amusement.

“Is it me? Am I dying and nobody told me? But I have so much to live for! And Jane won’t survive without me. She needs watering and Poptarts and someone to bitch at about domineering male scientists that think they know so much but they _don’t_!” 

He laughs, shaking his head at her. “Just eat the damn pizza, Lewis.” 

Darcy bites her lip to hide her grin. “All right, fine. If you’re sure…” She glances at him from the corner of her eyes like she thinks he might change his mind and tackle her for it. She knows he’s still hungry – 3/4′s of an extra large pizza later and he’s still hungry – because he’s _always_ hungry. But he sits there, calm as can be, and lets her have the last piece. _True love, everybody._  

Darcy curls up next to him, head on his shoulder, and hands him the crust, because it’s his favorite, and she loves him too. 


	43. Role Reversal, skinny!Steve

“You’re talented.” 

Steve looks up, his brows hiked. “Sorry?” 

There’s a woman beside him. They’re standing in front of the main piece of his art show, a painting he spent six months on, never quite happy with the shading or the colors. It’s Captain America, dressed in her tac suit, her face tipped forward, shadowed, hands braced on her shield. It’s his most solemn piece. Stern and serious in a way that a lot of art made of her isn’t. Popular media has been pulling away from the soldier aspect of her and focusing more on the pretty face or the curvy figure. That wasn’t what Steve wanted to capture with his art. He wanted the grit and the grim, the strength and the power. Especially with so much attention placed on femininity when it comes to women in the ARMY, he wanted to recognize that Captain America wasn’t any less female dressed in her tac gear, nor was she any less soldier wearing lipstick the same startling red as the blood seeping from a cut across her cheek. 

She waves a hand toward the painting hanging in front of them. “Sargent Barnes spoke highly of your work.” 

Steve frowns and leans back, his neck craning as he searches the studio. “Bucky’s here?” 

“No.” She rests her hands in front of her, a hand wrapped around her opposite wrist. “He hasn’t returned from Turkey yet.” 

Steve pauses, then looks back at her. Long brown hair rests against her back in loose waves. She’s dressed down in a pair of jeans and a loose sweater, unlaced boots and a side bag. There’s an iPod tucked in the pocket of her jeans; the string of her headphones is wrapped around her neck, buds hanging down across her chest loosely. 

When she turns her head just a little, he’s startled by just how much she looks like the picture above. A side profile of a darker, grittier outtake. 

“You’re…”  He trails off, speechless. 

“A fan.” She smiles, mouth hitching up at the corner, and then tips her chin up toward the painting. “I like it. It’s not my favorite though.” 

“Oh?”  He tucks his hands in the pockets of his pants and tries to stand a little taller, bringing his narrow shoulders up in the hopes that he doesn’t look quite as small as he feels just then. She’s larger than life, with or without the shield, and he feels about three feet tall and totally out of his depth in his best (admittedly, second hand) suit.  

She turns to face him properly, and her face is softer, her eyes rounder, than what she looks like in the stock photos or the history books or even on camera, in the midst of battle. “If you’ve got some time, I’d love to talk to you about your collection.” 

His face warms, as he looks around and realizes he’s in a room filled with the proof that he’s a tiny bit obsessed. “I’m not going to get slapped with a restraining order, am I? Because this was originally an homage to a historical figure. I mean, I started long before you, uh…” He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Woke up from an ice sleep…? Don’t sweat it. I seriously just want to talk art with you.” She points to a painting in the distance. “Specifically, how you managed to capture Dum-Dum’s mustache, because that might as well be 3-D it’s _that_ realistic.” 

Steve smiles, ducks his head, and then starts in that direction. When they come to a stop and she starts talking animatedly about her former friends and team, he takes a deep breath and shakes off his shock and awe. Sure, she’s Captain America, the center focus of his entire collection, but she’s also just Darcy Lewis, and unsurprisingly, that’s even more interesting. 


End file.
